Lillian Wald was a nurse who saw first hand the poor conditions of people living in the cities. Wald saw the need for healthcare among the large Jewish immigrant population in New York City. From this point, she worked to extend the services of public health nurses and in 1902, she initiated the first American public school nursing program in NYC. The program was very successful as…..and due to its success, Wald molded a great model and her idea set off a chain reaction. In response to her idea, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company began a nursing service for its industrial policyholders. Met Life’s following of Wald’s school nursing program inspired other insurance companies to do the same. In 1910, as a result of a series of nursing lectures …show more content…
Lillian Wald's approach was using her medical background to get organizations on board with her idea and influence others to do the same, ultimately making her methods successful. As a result of her efforts, there was less spread of sickness throughout schools and people were taken off the streets and put into settlement houses where they were given food and ideal and sanitary living conditions. Disease frequency began to diminish due to the less crowdedness and more sanitary environments. Jacob Riis’s method was to expose “the other half” and the reality of their living conditions not otherwise shown to the wealthier classes. His method was successful as people felt guilty and wanted to make a change for the poverty-stricken class. Thus, more effort was put in by the wealthy to help and get the less fortunate living in humane conditions. Nonetheless, Lillian Wald’s method was more successfull. By aiming to influence larger organizations, she was able to get a more widespread effort. As well as this, her implementation of settlement houses was more effective in getting people off of the street versus photographs which only got the point
For example, arriving immigrants in the 1900s did not come to America with a lot of money. The best that they could afford were small apartment-like rooms called dumbbell-tenements. These housing facilities did not provide much room for its inhabitants, especially for those living with a large family. Not only were these rooms small, but they were also dirty and filled with mold, which are conditions that prove to be very hazardous to one’s health. In an effort to solve this problem, the famous photographer Jacob Riis took detailed images of the living environment of these low-class immigrants. His published work led to the improvement of dumbbell-tenements and overall better conditions for immigrants as a whole. This was an issue in society that needed to be solved immediately, and it was solved with the help of a
immigrants. Wald dropped out of medical school and organized the Visiting Nurse Society (VNS). She
Upon earning employment as a reporter in 1873, Jacob Riis intended to expose the deplorable living conditions within the slums of New York city as well as the police department shelters that he himself had to stay in. The living conditions in the slums were terrible for the tenants, as the tenements were dark with poor air quality, overcrowded, unsanitary, and filled with crime and illnesses. At the time, most of the residents in the slums were immigrants and there were no sanitary laws to regulate housing conditions. By contrast, Lewis Hine became a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee in 1908 to advocate for reform and child labor laws. During the time, society had become industrialized and children were expected to work to support their families. These child laborers were overworked, not payed well, and did not receive education because it was not mandated. Hine took photographs of child laborers and factory workers in order to communicate the exploitation that these workers were enduring
Changes in the late 1800's resulted in universities admitting women, thus allowing them to explore many more educational opportunities. These factors together provided the impetus for establishment of hospitals and schools to formally train nurses, with many schools opening for the first time in the 1870s. At the same time, though the need for nurses had been established and the importance of their role within the realm of medical care recognized, there was a great deal of opposition to the proposal that nurses should be formally educated. This attitude was epitomized by a well-known article of the time published in 1908, 'The over-trained nurse' in which the author asserted that nursing was not a “profession” but merely an “honorable calling”. Consistent with this notion, public perception viewed nursing as a job that women were generally suited to perform rather than one which required special skill and was even equated with a religious “calling”. This view, influenced by early nursing's relationship with religious orders remained far into the 20th century.(Lasseter, 1999).
many of the wealthy families although aware of the reality most ignored it. The new incoming immigrants were not as aware of the actuality of western life. Despite their lack of knowledge, in their native countries their lives apparently were much worse when compared to America. There were many reasons that native Europeans left, the lack of democracy was one. As stated earlier a majority of Europe was a monarchy at the time; the commoners had no free will basically. An insignificant amount of people who left for religious freedom. This book shocked society into facing these problems. The fact that Riis did not paint some pretty story for the reader to read and be happy; he stated the facts. He did this to clarify the need for reform throughout the city. Although Riis showed prejudice against certain members of the slums. Riis’s novel sparked interest in the readers the nation called for reforms. His book was written near the start of the Progressive Era. New reforms for the betterment of society were being made. One that helped tenements was the Tenement House Act of 1867 which clearly defined what a tenement must and must not have. Riis’s friendship with Roosevelt helped him to bring upon changes like the park that is now named after him; he said that crime would drop if only the kids who lived in the slums were able to have fresh air away from temptation. With Roosevelt’s
In 1947, shortly after graduating with her Master’s in nursing, Dorothea Orem accepted a position with the Indiana State Board of Health, where she first thought of her theory of nursing. She left that position to work at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), the predecessor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, from 1957-1959. While at HEW, she took on the role of curriculum consultant and was tasked with the improvement of nurse training through curriculum development (Johnson & Webber, 2010). It was Orem’s role in this project that provided the impetus for her nursing theories as she began to explore the connections between nursing, education, and self-care. Taylor (2011) notes that Orem’s first published article,
Over the last five years, the United States has implemented a new policy in which Americans will receive their health care benefits. This policy is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act which was implemented in 2010 through United States federal statue and signed into law by President Barack Obama. The intentions of the reform is to insure that all Americans have affordable access to health care benefits without struggling to afford the cost associated. The reform is broken down into nine title sections that affect all aspects of health care and changes that will be associated. In this paper, I will be discussing each of the title sections and how the changes will affect the field of nursing.
During her time as a visiting nurse, Wald became more aware of community needs for health care. It began as seeing a need for nurses in public schools, and turned into the first public health nursing system with assistance from the New York Board of Health (National Women’s Hall of Fame, 2011, para. 2). Wald then helped start the National Organization of Public Health, and was the first president (National Women’s Hall of Fame, 2011, para. 2). As a pioneer in public health nursing, Wald was able to “create models of public health and social service programs” (Henry Street Settlement, para. 2). She made great contributions to the nursing profession.
Historically, the nursing practice wasn’t seen as a professional job, but leaders such as Nightingale and Barton paved a path for the nursing practice to continue its growth and become stronger. Simple hand washing provided by Nightingale reduced infections caused by operations while Barton helped to establish the American Red Cross (Pearson, 2015) which to this day continues to provide aid to those in need around the world. Contemporary issues for nursing are typically within the healthcare setting.
greatly to the cleansing of the New York slums. “Toiling in New York's Lower East Side before
The evolution of nursing as a profession had showed through time that it is both an art and science. Before the 19th century, the military and religious orders are the ones who perform the duties of how nurses work today. As time went by, different events throughout history such as wars and epidemics had shaped nursing to its present organization. Nowadays, nursing is pushing further towards the future in improving itself as a profession for better care and service to the community. The objective of this paper is to discuss the historical development of
This significance of public health nurses had made a major impact on history. They help shift relatively unsanitary living environments, diseases state awareness, health education, school programs for children from little or no existence to full swing participation by the community. Public health nurses in the Henry Street Settlement initiated awareness around the country, bringing rise to thousands more clinics spreading their mission (Buhler-Wilkerson). Despite the challenges the nurses faced, they carried on to care for the sick when the sick could not get care. As time went, it became so the visiting nurses were in demand as chronically ill patients filled the hospitals, leaving less space for critically ill and emergent cases.
The nursing profession has been around for a very long time. Through many changes and reforms, it has drastically evolved into the nursing profession we have today. Nurses have an important role within the healthcare industry in the treatment and medical care of the sick. These trusted healthcare professionals continue to make up the largest majority of the healthcare field, as well as the fastest growing occupation. Nursing is a job that allows people to not only care for the sick but also to experience, learn and further their interest in the human body. This course has definitely provided me an insight to the roots of the profession I would like to pursue. I think it is important to know the history of nursing to understand fully on the problems that are affecting the profession. I believe that we cannot effectively address important issues without a foundation of historical knowledge. In other words, by examining the nursing history, I will be able to appreciate my important role as a nurse in the healthcare system. The topics I will be including in my reflection are the works of Florence Nightingale, the affects of World War II, the challenges of Filipinos aspiring to be nurses, and excerpts in Chapter 10 of “A History of American Nursing.”
It was the twentieth century when two-thousand hospitals were put up in the United States. After the wars ended, there were few nursing jobs because of the large number of nurses. As a result, nursing became an “honorable profession,” which required college degrees. Technological advances were well thought out and processed as nursing began to thrive. People began to study an environment in which the sick healed. Scientists and doctors developed a routine that would help them study the human body more precisely.
In 1873 there were four hospitals with a school of nursing with in them. These hospitals were the New England Hospital for Women and Children; Massachusetts General Hospital; New Haven Hospital; and Bellevue Hospital.( 1996.Nursing. Dictionary of American History) The number of hospitals and hospital with nursing schools inside of them increased, because the hospitals soon found that the mortality and morbidity decreased with improved nursing care.( Nursing. Dictionary of American History) The shaping and molding of the nursing profession made the hospitals that we know today to be possible. In the 1860’s and 1870’s more Americans went to the hospitals for treatment because of the emphasis on hospital cleanliness, and the professional nurse.( Kellison, Kimberly. 1997-1998) Mary Eliza Mahoney became the first black graduate nurse in 1879.( Hine, Darlene,C., 1996) From 1893 to 1900 the number of nursing schools inside hospitals increased 225 to 432, and the number of hospitals increased from 178 to over 4000.( 1996.Nursing. Dictionary of American History) Nursing became considerably more popular and “by 1920, 54,953 women were in nursing