Chan, Safani and Winkle (2004) define medicine as the science associated with the prevention, cure and/or alleviation of diseases and injuries. On the other hand, Stanhope and Lancaster (2001) define nursing as the work of caring for the sick or injured or infirm, noting that in some cases, this caring factor can and must be applied even when no medical care is needed. In other words, the science of medicine may not be required for certain people but nursing care still is. Given this difference, the question can be asked as to whether medicine and nursing are really part and parcel of the same field of medicine. In other words, is nursing truly a subset of medicine? The purpose of this paper is to answer this question. The paper will show that, based on the pertinent literature, it is not valid to claim that nursing is a subset of medicine.
Before examining the literature, it is important to understand the significance associated with determining whether nursing is a subset of medicine. Several factors make this important but the most important of these is that if nursing is a subset of medicine, then it is reasonable to utilize non-nursing medical personnel to fulfill nurses' roles. This is currently a very important issue in professional nursing.
For example, Tomlinson (2004) reports that Florida International University has developed a program to train foreign physicians to become registered nurses as a means of resolving the nursing shortage. Tomlinson points out that many foreign physicians who come to the United States are unable to practice medicine because the exams need to be taken in English. By providing these physicians with an accelerated 18-month long program to become registered nurses, Miami's Florida International University will still allow them to work and practice in the medical profession.
However, as Tomlinson (2004) notes, nursing requires significant training that is independent of medicine even...