Florence Nightingale Contributions To Nursing

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Florence Nightingale defined nursing over 100 years ago as "the act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery (Nightingale, 1860). Florence Nightingale is the headmost person who contributed to the improvement and development of health. However, she still is and inspiration and also as important subject to worldwide individuals. She was born to a rich family where she was brought up in an English high society. From young age Florence Nightingale accommodated the needy and the sickly individuals in the village neighboring her estate, and by the age of 16 she selected nursing as her future career. However, Nightingale, wanted to use her ability, to make a huge significance in this world. Given her determination, …show more content…

Nightingale’s achievements completely changed nursing into an honorable and respectable profession by establishing education and responsibilities into the job. Thereafter, nurses were no longer considered low, but became respected and an important role of human lives. She was contemporary in using her experience during the Crimean War to expose the initial instance of the linkage between research, theory and practice. In the Crimean War, she was a nurse who took notice of the uncleanliness and degradation of the military hospitals. She worked hard to bring the death rate down by making sanitary improvements and organizing levels of standards for clean and safe hospitals. She explained these methods in her Notes on Hospitals to improve increased ventilation, adding windows, improving drainage and increasing …show more content…

The Nightingale School for nurses, was a part of St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, where it offered the legitimate training program for nurses, in order to work in the hospital as professionals, help the poor, and teach others. Throughout the training, nurses were taught about the importance of patient home care and taught students how to take care of the sick at homes and the practice of Midwifery. Furthermore, many of the students continued to be matrons at well known, major hospitals in England, as well as, they established their own program of training throughout the world. “In the past, nursing, secretarial work and teaching were largely the career choices for women” (Morales, 2012). Earlier, hospitals and schools were the only workplaces for nurses. Nurses were well-respected. Occasionally the implication of today will not be truly possible unless seen against the backdrop of yesterday (Members.tripod.com, 2016). Development and trends in nursing now, can be understood and explained not only by nursing’s current context but also by its past. In early days, physicians themselves educated and trained nurses. That time nurses dealt with actual, real patients and in real life situations. Once physicians felt they had a sufficient training, these nurses were put onto to practice. They were lucky enough to have a hands on, real

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