There's a discussion going on at a bioethics blog dealing with patient modesty. The discussion went a little offcourse with an interesting subtopic called "Nurses, Clients and Power". I wonder if you agree if the types of power listed are used by nurses when dealing with patients.
The Powers:
1. Overt Power --Nurses "openly giving orders or making decisions without consulting patients." There was often a shared assumption between patient and nurse that the nurse will be in control. "Thus we can see that overt power is not simply a matter of making people do things against their will. In many cases, patients interpreted nurses' open power as legitimate, and willingly went along with it."
2. Persuasion -- Nurses "cajoling patients to do things that they originally did not want to do. This often involved negotiation. The "nurses' position within the organization of health care gives them a pegged position in the negotiating process."
3. Controlling the Agenda -- This was the most common method nurses used. In this case "the exercise of power is very subtle and comes in the form of manipulation." The nurse appeared to give the patient a choice by asking questions, but the questions were constructed in such a way that, "in reality, patients have little choice but to go along with" the agenda.
4. Terms of Endearment -- This was the most subtle form of power nurses used -- based upon "displays of affection." In other words, treating the patients similar to the way a parent would treat a child.
The study is not a definitive example of how power works within health care -- but as just one example of how power can be studied within the hospital culture.
The source material:
Chapter 8 "Nurses, Clients and Power" by Martin Johnson, in the book Sociology as Applied to Nursing & Health Care by Mary Birchenall et. al.
A. Hewison (1995) "Nurses power in interactions with patients" in the Journal of Advanced Nursing 21: 75-82. The nurses studied were working with the elderly.
