Suggestions for an history of French nurses professional qualification

Nursing as a profession was gradually introduced during the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Government initiatives in 1902, 1922, and 1946 constituted the three main steps toward nurses becoming professionally qualified, with the fundamental element being the completion of a certified training course. In this paper, we examine nurses becoming professionally qualified from both a diachronic and a synchronic historical perspective. The author proposes avenues for future research and suggests scientific issues that could be examined in order to deepen the understanding of this social phenomenon. These include state action, the role of jurists and physicians, the framework and content of professional training, nurses’ social backgrounds, the features of society during their youth, the patterns of training courses and professional practices, and the dynamics of occupational identities. Lastly, the author points out that being qualified as a nurse is one of three skill levels in the field of professional health care. He believes that research projects on this topic need to draw upon different methods from the social sciences.