Nursing
When Florence Nightingale noted that nurses, not doctors, should teach nursing she emphasized the uniqueness of the profession. Nursing is not a watered-down version of doctoring. Nor is nursing practice something doctors learn in medical school. It is a nurse, not a doctor, who sits by the patient's bedside. It is a nurse, not a doctor, who helps patients bathe, read, and eat while they heal. Doctors and nurses provide wholly different services to patients. Their professions are related and ancillary but they are not so similar to render doctors able to teach nurses how to practice the art and science of caring. Therefore, only a nurse knows how to counsel and mentor other aspiring caring professionals.
Nightingale knew this, which is why she remains one of the most important figures in the history of the profession. Florence Nightingale may have in fact given birth to nursing as a professional enterprise: defining it in contrast to what physicians do. Physicians have long overshadowed nurses in part because they make more money and earn more social status. However, their medical training in no way prepares doctors for what nurses provide to patients. Nurses are called to their profession because of an innate desire to nurture and care for others. In contrast, doctors might be able to care but are not required to. Their job centers on effective praxis rooted in science. A nurse's job demands a caring attitude and an effective means to deliver the best quality of care.
Florence Nightingale knew that nurses would for a long time be viewed as subordinate to doctors, which is why she proposed a new vision of the profession. Nurses often do provide support services to doctors: hence, the assumption that doctors are able to teach nurses. Nightingale understood the fallacy of that assumption and suggested instead that nursing be cultivated as a singular, unparalleled profession. The nuances of nursing have become, since Nightingale's time, more widely renowned and appreciated as distinct from doctoring.
In the Crimean War, she arranged for the physical set-up of the patients' beds, the discarding of the infested and soiled linens and the ensuring of good and maintained ventilation. After the War, she advocated for social reforms, one of which was the review of the British Poor Laws. The recall of this Law initiated its amendment into the Hardy's Bill on 1867. This bill looked into the state of
Nurses should show the patients pictures and entertain them this way. Care, to Nightingale, means thinking of the patient's needs and desires for things to do and to be entertained. Taking Food: The nurse must supply a patient's every need, including the food that brings recovery to the body. She is in favor of hot tea and something to eat every three hours. But she advises never to leave food
Nursing Today VI. Conclusion A. The Call to Vocation B. The Influences: Before and After C. Nursing, Feminism, Service, and the Male Ego Reference List Bloy, M. (2010). Florence Nightingale. The Victorian Web. Retrieved from http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/florrie.html This site gives a good history of Nightingale, her service, and the impact she had on nursing. Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Retrieved from http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Series/CWFN.shtml A great source of information for all the written works of
In 1858, Louis Pasteur identified germs, proving that diseases did not 'spontaneously' arise as nightingale thought (Atwell, 1998). However, it was Nightingale that began work as to the conditions that promoted the growth of germs, but she would not know this for many years. The Crimean War: Putting Theory Into Practice When the Crimean War broke out, she began work at once in a British hospital. Her emphasis was placed on
Florence Nightingale -- Nursing Theorist The pioneering healthcare services that Florence Nightingale performed during 1854 Crimean War in Europe is today recognized as the beginning of the organized and sanitary field of nursing. This paper follows the career of Nightingale and recognizes her contribution to the theory of nursing care -- and the development of nursing training -- for the ill and the injured. The Progression of Florence Nightingale's Career From Financial Comfort
Nightingale Florence Nightingale and Environment Theory According to most nursing historians, Florence Nightingale is the leading figure in the development of modern nursing. As an early innovator in the field, Nightingale would pioneer many of the ideologies and approach which are still in circulation today. In particular, nursing professionals in her wake would coin the term Environment Theory in order to describe the mode of care that would be her contribution to
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