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Thesis ID: CBB001567451

Missionaries, Women, and Health Care: History of Nursing in Colonial Hong Kong (1887--1942) (2013)

Kang, Jong Hyuk David (Author)

Wong, Angela Wai-Ching
Chinese University of Hong Kong

ISBN: 9781303844645

Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Advisor: Wong, Angela Wai-Ching.
Physical Details: 246 pp.
Language: English

Outside Links

Academia.edu

Public health Colonialism Missionaries and missions Nurses and nursing Women in medicine Cross-cultural interaction; cultural influence Medicine and religion 19th century 20th century, early Hong Kong

Looking at the writings of Qiu Jin, a trained nurse and revolutionary leader, who played a vital role in the founding of the Chinese Republic in the early twentieth century, Andrews summarized nursing in China by stating that "nursing was in itself a revolutionary profession for women in early twentieth-century China, and that Qiu Jin's endorsement of it highlights some of the consequences of the acceptance of Western medicine in China." However, what were the revolutionary aspects of professional nursing in China? Which medical and cultural agencies were involved and engaged in this revolution? In particular, how did this revolutionary profession fit into Chinese culture and society? What roles did the revolutionary nursing profession play during the cultural encounter between the "East" and the "West"? Ultimately, what is the significance of Hong Kong in revolutionizing the nursing profession? These broad questions are one that this dissertation attempts to address. I will first start by looking at the China context and examine the history of nursing in modern China, focusing particularly on the development of a few key hospitals and institutions that provided China's nursing education in Chapter Two. Then, I shall examine how the nurses' platform emerged in the late nineteenth century Hong Kong, and the reason why missionary Nethersole Hospital established colony's very first institutionalized nursing training program in Chapter Three. I will survey the very first group of institutionalized female nurses recruited by medial missionaries, and study how these Chinese women took on the nursing occupation at the Western medical institution. I will also examine the responsibilities assigned to these Chinese nurses in relation to their working relationship with the hospital's foreign staff members. Chapter Four looks at how the increased level of acceptance of the nursing occupation within the Chinese Christian community further enhanced Nethersole's leadership role in nursing training. The participation of the Chinese nurses became even more significant when European doctors attempted to institutionalize childbirth by promoting hospital delivery at the turn of the century. Chapter Five then studies how nurses' professional identity emerged at the time of political unrest, and how social movements influenced the development of nursing in Republican China. Placing Hong Kong's nursing development under China's context, I will analyze how Chinese nurses in Nethersole started to embrace their professional identity, and the ways these professional identities expanded nurses' opportunities both inside and outside the hospital. On the other hand, I will also look at the remaining gender barrier for these Chinese nurses. Chapter Six discusses the way Chinese nursing leaders emerged under China's social movements in 1920s, and the way Chinese nurses contributed to the development of nursing in China. I will also look at how nursing leaders emerged in Hong Kong when more hospitals joined Nethersole in participating in training for institutionalized nurses, and how the emergence of various nursing programs in the colony influenced the structure of the nursing curriculum at the Nethersole Hospital. At the same time, I will further address the issue with cross-gender nursing which continued to challenge the missionary hospital and Chinese nurse during this period. Lastly, Chapter Seven will survey how Hong Kong's colonial government found ways to monitor the colony's nursing profession. I will particularly focus on how government's supervision affected Nethersole's nursing training program, and how missionary hospital continue to find ways to play a vital role in Hong Kong's nursing development. I will conclude the chapter by making remarks to the breaking of gender boundary in the men's hospital, and how nursing ultimately became feminized at the onset of Japanese Invasion.

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Description Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 75/07(E), Jan 2015. Proquest Document ID: 1525031686.

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