Am I professional as a nurse in Finland? : Chinese migrant nurses' interpretation of themselves as professionals

Abstract

Under the background of globalization and nursing shortage in Finland, there is an increasing trend of nurse migration from China to Finland. Nurse is a highly professional occupation. Understanding nurses’ interpretation of themselves as professionals would lay the foundation for promoting these nurses’ professional level, which would improve the quality of care nurses provide to patients, help to retain nurses in the area, and mitigate the shortage of nursing force. Nevertheless, there are currently few studies conducted from the perspective of professionalism of migrant nurses. As a result, I decide to situate my study in this field, and my research question is: How do migrant nurses from China to Finland interpret themselves as professionals. To answer this research question, a qualitative research was conducted and nine interviews were done with Chinese migrant nurses that are currently working in Finland.

Studies on professionalism point out that professionalism has been tranforming from occupational to organizational, with many occupations losing their control of the profession to large organizations. Legislation, professional associations and hospitals are the three main factors influencing nursing professionalism. Miller with colleagues developed a model evaluating nursing professionalism that was widely used later on. Combining Miller’s model with empirical studies on nursing professionalism, I focused on four prominent categories in my research: educational background, continuing education and competency, communicative skills, and adherence to the code of ethics. Two other categories that were rarely mentioned in literature emerged from my data: difference in nursing practice, and respect from patients and colleagues.

This study found out that the shift of these migrant nurses' interpretation is multi-layered. Better chances of further education, being able to pay more attention to each patient, being more respected make the nurses believe that they are professional in Finland; huge language barrier makes them cause damage to their self-confidence as professionals. Differences in the nurses' daily practicing procedures have various influence on their self-interpretation as professionals, while differences in nursing education and training have little influence on the interpretation.