Different Philosophies And New Discoveries Have Created A Foundation That All Nurses Work

In order to explore my philosophy it is important that I be aware of how I would define nursing. “Definitions of nursing, like nursing itself, are dynamic; nursing is constantly evolving to meet new needs and take account of new knowledge.”(Clark, 2003, add p. # for direct quote)

In the late 1800s to the 1900’s, nursing wasn’t considered a profession and was thought of as “housekeepers” as stated in the Elearnportal article. Nurses would stay at the place of residence, clean, cook, and do housework. On top of those duties, they would take on tasks that normally a physician would do. In the late 1800s during the Crimean War and Civil War, nurses were needed more then ever. There weren’t many nurses at the time but a nurse named Florence Nightingale changed that. She “asked the Secretary of War to allow her to train women to care for the sick and wounded.”(Fundamental Concepts of Skilled Nursing p.2) Her group of nurses “lowered the death rate from 60% to 1%.” (FCSN p.2) This was a milestone and became a part of nursing history.

One aspect of nursing that has changed since the early 1800’s is nursing education. There was no question about the credibility of the women providing care to soldiers after the war. For many years untrained nurses and consequently nursing students cared the sick without any supervision. In 1873, the need for educated nurses was sought but was opposed by untrained physicians who thought trained nurses would pose a threat to their jobs (Gary & Hott, 1988). “Nurses have evolved

According to World Book Encyclopedia, the career of nursing has advanced throughout history. It has developed from the nurse been a housekeeper to a trained professional that could help the sick recover. Nurses in the past never went to a school, they were nuns or other women who provide care for the disadvantaged who had no family support. These women only had knowledge of nursing from what they learned from family and friends. Nurses were not respected in the early days because been a nurse was not consider a reputable career. A nurse’s job was to make patients comfortable in their final days. My research shows that Nursing before the 20th century was the darkest for a nurse; and her patient. During this, time people did not know the

Philosophy of nursing is an occupation consisting of professional individuals that exhibit and express compassion, respect, dignity and integrity to their patients and fellow coworkers. Nursing is not just a career, it is intertwined in the way we think, make decisions and prioritize values. As a nurse, it is important to me to provide the highest quality nursing care possible to achieve excellence in patient outcomes, while simultaneously, providing a respectful healing environment and work with other members of the care team to achieve positive patient outcomes.

Through the ages nursing has changed dramatically and has become one of the most important roles in the medical community. What makes nursing so unique is that it is much more than just giving shots and taking blood pressures, it’s also giving your time and your heart to complete strangers. There is a certain spirit in nursing that allows these nurses to work long hard hours to provide service to these patients. When people are admitted to hospitals it is often the nurse that they connect with and will remember when looking back on their experiences. Although many people are very familiar with modern day nursing, most people do not know all the obstacles nurses overcame in the past. What nurses, like Florence Nightingale, accomplished

In the 1850’s, a woman named Florence Nightingale not only reformed nursing as it existed in that time, but also laid the foundation for the profession (Egenes, 2009). Nightingale had become horrified at the death tolls and number of sick British soldiers reported for the Crimean War. Florence used her political influence to obtain permission for her and a group of women to travel, in order to provide care for the soldiers. Upon arrival, the band of nurses used Ms. Nightingale’s knowledge of nursing to sanitize and surgically prep not only the hospital but also the

There are over 3.1 registered nurses worldwide making nursing the most employed healthcare job in the world (Nursing Fact Sheet, 2011). Starting as early as 300 A.D, nurses have held the enormous responsibility to care for the ill and wounded (The History of Nursing, 2016). Nursing has gone through significant changes since this time, evolving from an assistant role solely for women to an independent profession for direct patient care with numerous specialties and outlets. This change could not have occurred without the significant influence of one woman: Florence Nightingale. Accelerated by her Christian faith, Florence Nightingale revolutionized the realm of nursing by introducing and improving nursing standards and beginning the very first secular nursing school; this influence established Nightingale as an advocate for women’s rights, specifically in the workplace, and an inspiration to future nurses everywhere, including myself.

The nursing profession acquired prestige and legitimacy through Florence Nightingale’s reforms in the late 1800s (Mackintosh, 1997.) Nightingale’s reforms however also helped establish nursing as a woman’s occupation as she proclaimed “nurturance, gentleness, empathy compassion, tenderness and unselfishness to be essentially feminine and essentially nurse-like (Mackintosh, 1997). Other factors affected the decline of men participating in nursing but

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern day nursing, has had a huge impact on professionalization and standardization throughout the years. In 1820, Florence Nightingale was born into the aristocratic social sphere and it was the aristocratic woman who visited and brought comfort to the sick and poor. In 1850, Nightingale began her training as a nurse at the institute of St. Vincent de Paul at Alexandria, Egypt. When she was about thirty five years old she gathered a small group of untrained woman to the British hospital where wounded soldiers rested during the Crimean war and provided organization and cleaning of the hospital and provided care for the wounded soldiers. Following the Crimean war, she founded the first training school for Nurses at St. Thomas Hospital in London in 1860, and that would become the model for nursing education in the United States.

Florence Nightingale is considered the founder of modern nursing. She was born to a wealthy family, and at a young age she felt called by God to help the poor and sick. While most people know that Nightingale was influential in the field of nursing, they might not know how much she truly impacted it. Nightingale essentially established the profession. Before she came along, nurses considered their jobs to be unimportant and of low-status, as they were untrained and were not taught properly about nursing, but learned through experience. Nightingale’s efforts turned nursing into a respectable profession raising the standards by incorporating education and responsibilities into the job. Nurses were no longer looked down upon, but became respected

By the age of 16, against her family’s wishes, Florence Nightingale decided to forgo the traditional route of marriage and set her sights on nursing. Many refer to this period in time as the “dark age” of nursing. Nurses were typically poor, unskilled and generally seen as unsavory characters. Hospitals were known more as the place you go to die rather than for providing life saving care. This did not deter Florence, she received her first formal training as a nurse at Theodore Fliedner’s hospital and school for Lutheran deaconesses

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 to a wealthy, aristocratic, Victorian England family. She was given the education and proper upbringing that women of this period were accustomed. At 30 years of age she left her family to attend a nursing training program in Germany; this was against the wishes of her established family. (Black,2014) How did this proper British woman go on to revolutionize nursing; how did “The Lady with the Lamp” become the mother of American nursing; why should she still be studied in nursing education in 2016?

During the time of Elizabeth Frye, Pastor Fleidner and Florence Nightingale is when a system of nursing was established. Medical professions found it difficult to train women on the basic skills of nursing, however it was only due to hard work that many obstacles were overcome as they recognized order and cleanliness in the hospitals and they discovered that due to the cleanliness, deaths declined and the amount of people recovering increased and nurses were regarded more like assistants to doctors rather than servants.

In nursing school, I remembered learning about Florence Nightingale and her impact in nursing. Still to this day, her teachings and work to advance nursing is discussed. The nursing profession has grown and evolved a great deal since the times of Nightingale. However, visionaries such as her and their theories have been the ones making that happen. “The first three American training schools for nurses, modeled after Nightingale's famous school at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, opened in 1873” (Black, 2014, p. 26). As nursing grew and more work was done to advance nursing as a profession, the developing of professional associations such as ANA and NLNE helped further that goal. As author Black (2014) continues, “The precursor to the National League for Nursing, the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses, was formed to address issues in nursing education. The society changed its name in 1912 to the National League of Nursing Education (NLNE) and in 1952 became the National League for Nursing (NLN). This event held during the Chicago World's Fair became a pivotal point in nursing history. Three years later, in 1896, Isabel Hampton Robb founded the group that eventually became the American Nurses Association