Jewish Refugees and the British Nursing Profession - A Gendered Opportunity

This book follows the lives of female Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution and became nurses. Nursing was nominally a profession but with its poor pay and harsh discipline, it was unpopular with British women. In the years preceding the Second World War, hospitals in Britain suffered chronic nurse staffing crises. As the country faced inevitable war, the Government and the profession's elite courted refugees as an antidote to the shortages, but many hospitals refused to employ Continental Jews.
The book explores the changes in the refugees' status and lives from the war years to the foundation of the National Health Service and to the latter decades of the twentieth century. It places the refugees at the forefront of manoeuvres in nursing practice, education and research at a time of social upheaval and alterations in the position of women.

About the author

Jane Brooks is a Lecturer in Nursing at the University of Manchester and Deputy Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery

Product details

• Authors: Jane Brooks, Brooks Jane
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 07.05.2024
• EAN: 9781526167422
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-6742-2
• No. of pages: 288
• Series: Nursing History and Humanities
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Judaism; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Oral History, 20th Century, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / Jewish, MEDICAL / History, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History of Medicine, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Social and cultural history, Relating to Jewish people and groups