Toward an integrative model of professional practice

Abstract

A review of nursing practice demonstrates repeated attempts to focus on direct professional responsibility to clients, but failure to do so consistently in an effective professional model. The cycles of growth of the profession depict the long-standing subordination of nursing to hospital administration and medicine and suggest that nursing is ready to move into an integrative, collaborative stage of development. A trilevel model of professional practice is proposed, based on differentiated roles for graduate, baccalaureate, and associate degree levels of education. An organizational structure that places nursing clinicians directly responsible to clients would facilitate nursing's response to clients' health concerns whenever and wherever they occur.