Kari Martinsen

Kari Martinsen (born 1943) is a Norwegian nurse and academic whose work concerns the philosophy of nursing and of caring for other people. Born in Oslo, she graduated from nursing college in 1964, worked as a clinical nurse and then as a psychiatric nurse at Dikemark Psychiatric Hospital, where she began to question care that focused on technology and disease instead of the patient. She went on to study psychology, philosophy and phenomenology, completing a master's degree at the University of Bergen in 1974 with a thesis on philosophy and nursing, the first critical analysis of its kind in Norway. She later moved from practice into academic work, teaching at several universities in Norway and Denmark, and researched the social history of women and care. In 2011 the Norwegian crown named her a Knight First Class of the Order of St. Olav for her contribution to nursing.