From Competence to Capability

Clinical competence was conceived around the manual job market, where a high level of intelligence was not considered necessary, only skill proficiency, and workers were trained in performing such skills (Watson et al. 2002). The 1990’s saw the nursing profession embrace competency standards and clinical competence; regulatory authorities measured practice and licensure against them, curricula was designed around them, and students were assessed against them (O’Connell et al. 2014).