Abstract
The thesis focuses nursing education and professionalization in Post-war Taiwan. After 1945, simultaneous, complex changes occurred throughout Taiwanese politics, the Chinese nursing industry, Japanese colonial practices, and the influence of Western foreign aid. These influenced postwar professional development in nursing. This paper attempts to understand various postwar nursing aspects and explores lasting difficulties through historical contexts of political factors, social change, education, and health care. The postwar period covers 1945 to 1991, when the “Nursing Personnel Act” was legislatively implemented. The act is a symbol of development in nursing education, exams, professional licensing, and professional identification. At this point, nursing rights were standardized and secured. Research has presented the following preliminary conclusions. First, there were politics aspects of nursing. During the 1950s, the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) wanted to retake China, and thus the concept of "nursing is support" was instilled in school education, nursing classes, military training, civil defense, women’s associations, foreign aid, and medical treatment from churches. They all showed pervasive political forces. Second, there were changes in education. Around 1970, in addition to nursing classes in high school and college, there were two to five-year colleges, four-year midwifery schools, on-the-job training programs, and other diverse educational systems. Eventually, some of these schools were deemed unnecessary and eliminated; others, supported by studies, have remained to the present day as established and necessary institutions of learning. Third, of note is professional establishment. Nursing during the Japanese colonial era was considered a career choice. After the war, it was influenced by technological evolution and modern concepts, and thus gradually became a profession. From 1950 to 1970, trained assistant and substitute nurses, health workers, and medical care workers with informal backgrounds were gradually eliminated from the field following the establishment of a specialized nursing educational system. Those with formal nursing backgrounds and those who took national exams to become licensed nurse practioners took over. The final chapter of this study, which starts with foreign political influence and ends with the development of the field, inspects the specialized core courses of nursing education, which can be described as portraying the history of Taiwan nursing. Keywords: Nursing History、Nursing Education、Nursing Profession、Political Perspective