About the Journal

The European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics (ENHE) creates a dialogue between the history and the ethics of nursing while providing new impulses for advancing the subfields of the history as well as the ethics of nursing.

Announcements

Call for Abstracts (Eighth Issue 2026): To become a nurse

2025-03-31
Theme 2026: To become a nurse Deadline for abstracts: May 31, 2025
Deadline for manuscripts: November 30, 2025

Models of nursing education and training in ethics can vary widely across Europe, depending on how nursing was organized in each country. The path to academization varied greatly and the different manifestations of denominational nursing traditions also had far-reaching consequences. This special issue will focus on these historically-specific developments in nursing education. The aim is to identify and discuss differences in developments, societal and structural conditions. A central topic is the formation of professional and ethical standards for the profession. The question of how to become a “good” nurse has a long history in nursing debates and continues to have relevance today. Even in the early days of nursing training, it was a matter of course that the development of the nurse’s character was as important as the practical and theoretical training. In modern nursing training, the development of an ethical attitude plays an important role alongside the teaching of ethical foundations. The eighth themed issue of the European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics is dedicated to nursing education from a historical and ethical perspective.

 

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Current Issue

Vol. 7 (2025): Nursing and Migration
					View Vol. 7 (2025): Nursing and Migration

This seventh issue of the European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics 2025 is dedicated to the topic of ‘Nursing and Migration’ and has been edited for the first time by a group of guest editors: Fruzsina Müller, David Freis and Pierre Pfütsch begin their introduction by presenting the current state of research on this topic and providing an overview of the concept and of individual contributions to the issue. The explicit aim is to establish a fruitful exchange between historical and ethical perspectives.

The shortage of nursing staff is one of the constants in European healthcare systems. As early as the 1950s, European countries were recruiting qualified nurses and trainees for the nursing profession from abroad in order to avert a crisis in their own healthcare systems. Since then, demographic change and advances in healthcare have exacerbated the shortage of nursing staff. A considerable number of people working in nursing today are migrants.

This issue's front page features the cover of one of West Germany's leading journals for nursing professionals. This December 1968 edition focuses exclusively on recruiting nursing staff from India (copyright Bibliomed).

Published: 2026-02-02

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