In her reflections on the vocation of nursing Robinson explores many myths and archetypes that give shape and energy to the identity of the nurse as it has evolved in Western culture, including the stories of Hygeia, Baubo, Hermes, Hecate, Cassandra, and the Dionysian Maenad. The ancient stories of each of these figures and others articulate particular constraints, conventions, and conflicts involved in caregiving, especially in the ways women assume the role of caregiver. She explains at the outset that she deals particularly with women in nursing, though now many men are nurses, since traditionally it has been a profession deeply shaped by cultural notions of female roles. Another layer of this exploration is a chapter on the nurse in popular culture that considers ways in which the figure of the nurse has been both elevated and debased, made comic or tragic, sidelined or sexualized. The multidimensionality of the nursing vocation and, consequently, the challenge it poses to women who enter it, is strongly emphasized throughout the six chapters, which together depict the work of nursing as a soul journey. This journey challenges nurses in new ways to work within institutions that suppress important aspects of their power to do healing work at a level of intimacy generally not accessed by doctors.
