Discussing Professionalization, Gender, and Care: History of Soviet Healthcare in Comparative Perspective. (360G-Wellcome-103669_Z_14_Z)

This proposal is to fund a two-day workshop to evaluate Soviet nursing and healthcare history within a broader international context. To do this, it brings together scholars from the history of medicine, the history of nursing, and those working on the history of medicine in Russian studies. Russian nursing has only evolved in a western sense in the past twenty years and is still a developing profession. This workshop will therefore probe the complexities of Soviet nursing and healthcare h istory to yield greater insights into healthcare practices and attitudes in Russia and abroad. Should our understanding of Soviet nursing and healthcare conform to western notions of professional development? Does the Soviet case provide a new framework for interpreting healthcare history? The workshop will first examine Soviet nursing relative to international nursing and healthcare; and second, it will explore how nursing in the Soviet Union developed in relation to other medical profession s. Early career and established career scholars will have the opportunity to collaborate and comparatively assess Soviet nursing and healthcare. This workshop will be the first to focus on understanding the evolution of Russian nursing and healthcare more generally in a comparative context.