The nursing profession's coming of age: The end of medicine as a profession

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7532.51

BMJ 2006;332:51 (7 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7532.51

Letter

The nursing profession's coming of age

The end of medicine as a profession

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Editor—Young describes the coming of age of the nursingprofession.¹ All professions and occupations are human creationsand therefore are subject to change. With the widening of rolesof many professions, it becomes harder to define what a doctorcan do that can't be done by an appropriately trained memberof another profession. Perhaps major surgery and certifyingcause of death are all that remains. With the increasing difficultyof getting junior doctors to do anything that may be regardedas work (rather than education) we doctors may be engineeringthe abolition of our profession, and we may move from distinctprofessions to practitioners from varied backgrounds being trainedfor a particular function.