Values, Ideologies, and Dilemmas: Professional and Occupational Contradictions

Developments in many "for-profit" psychiatric hospitals over the past decade raise concerns about the nature of values in proprietary health care. These developments raise questions of whether nursing values and ideologies can coexist with those of the current health care environment. There are two influences that are important in considering the issue of nursing within the for-profit context: the commercial motivation of the present health care system and the possible subordination of nursing values to the objectives of lay (business) persons. It is imperative to initiate dialogues of the problematic ideological and ethical dilemmas confronting nurses in the work setting.