Trackbacks
-
[…] the Founding Mother of professional nursing, Florence Nightingale, whose birthday is the midpoint of National Nurses Week, was laboring in the Crimean War and […]
-
[…] the early 1860’s Florence Nightingale was getting the world’s first professional nursing school started in London. In the United […]
-
[…] Professional Nursing does not include battlefields or the hospitals near them, like the stories of Florence Nightingale, Dorothea Dix or Mary Ann Bickerdyke. Her work to professionalize nursing was in the political […]
The Founding Mother of the Nursing Profession: Florence Nightingale
Nursing was recognized as a profession in its own right due to the hard work of many women, aptly described as Founding Mothers. Any consideration of the Founding Mothers of professional nursing must start with Florence Nightingale.
Florence was not to be dissuaded, and following her heart she studied with a German religious community that provided services to the sick and poor. Following that experience she returned to London and took a position with the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen. That would prepare Nightingale for her rise to prominence.
Nightingale worked tirelessly to improve the hospital conditions and the soldiers’ survival rate improved dramatically. The improvement resulted from Nightingale’s ability to lead, organize and to get things done. These are qualities I’ve come to know in the modern nurse during my marriage of 27 years.
Beyond her work on hospital conditions, Nightingale cared personally for the soldiers, making rounds during the night after the medical officers had retired. She became known as “the Lady with the Lamp,” and the London Times referred to her as a “ministering angel”.
Despite military officers that considered her unfeminine and a nuisance, she carried on her work and confront those officers she considered incompetent.
Nightingale’s experience in the Crimean War would soon be applied to civilian public health. In 1860, Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King’s College in London. She would go on to contribute to hospital design, including arranging wards around the nursing station, a design adopted around the world. Over 150 years later, the lessons she learned during the Crimean War remain part of modern life. It is due to her we have Medical School Applications where women and men can go and get educated in nursing which then can in turn help save peoples lives.
______________________________
[i] It is Ms. Nightingale’s birthday that marks the midpoint of National Nurses Week.
Comments
For Further Reading
Amazon