Background: In the field of nursing in Switzerland, educations have experienced a fundamental reorganization with the implementation of the new law on Vocational and Professional Education and Training (2004). Among other things, this change affects professional images.
Purpose: To show how the different professional images in the field of nursing are being constructed in the descriptions of professions by graduates after the reshaping of the educations and the occupational field in general.
Methods: In 110 semi-structured interviews, healthcare assistants and registered nurses (college diploma and Bachelor of Science) in their early careers were asked to explain their professional image. The participant's answers were analysed based on a qualitative content analysis and considering the theoretical background of Berger and Luckmann (1977).
Results: The interviews show that professional images emerge on the interaction of societal attributes and individual processes of adoption and revision. Graduates are challenged to adjust stereotypes and to achieve a balance between their own professional image and a missing or inappropriately perceived societal image.
Conclusion: There should be further emphasis on the differentiation between the professions and the different educations in the field of nursing in order to achieve a better public perception of the different professions.
Keywords: Berufsbild; Fachfrau/-mann Gesundheit; Stereotype; dipl. Pflegefachperson; education; nursing; professional role; qualitative Sozialforschung; qualitative research.