Abstract

Post-1989 structural reforms to the Czech health care service allowed for the introduction of new models of the nurse—patient relationship and new ideals of adequate nursing care. This article follows how these shifts were manifested in social relations within a Prague-based nursing home, founded by Borromeo nuns in the mid 1990s. Focusing on ideas about the place of emotional identification with patients amongst a range of nursing staff in the home (nuns, civil nurses and managers), this article explores how ideologies of care are linked to different articulations of modernity and, in particular, to changing configurations of public and private as embodied aspects of the modern self.

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