Nursing Through Time

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In today’s society nursing has had to face several challenges in its pursuit in becoming a recognised profession. Nursing has gone through many stages of attached stigma, changing as technology and society evolved as a whole. Going from a low social class responsibility in the 19th century, to becoming a well-respected profession that it has become today, public perception, the way in which society views, has changed greatly in the last two hundred years. Along with these changes has come a large change in technology which is causing the responsibility of nurses to change as well as now individual actions are tainting the image of the nursing profession. This is due to the technological evolution with mass communication drawing attention to negative actions of nursing individuals which is overshadowing the positive aspects of nursing.

The public’s perception of nursing today differs from that of the nineteenth and twentieth century. During the 1800’s nursing was not seen as a profession, but a role that was undertaken by lower class women in society. (Klainberg & Dirschel, 2010). The skill of looking after the ill and child bearers was considered that of low status. Nursing was displayed throughout the current times media outlets, most of which were novels, as being poor, dirty, alcoholics as seen in Charles Dickinson novel Martin Chuzzlewit. It wasn’t until the work of Florence Nightingale in the mid 1800’s that the public’s perception of what nurse was changed. (Daly, Speedy, & Jackson, 2014) Until than the majority of nurses had been prostitutes and the poor due to low statues, so when Nightingale, a woman of the high class Victorian Era became a nurse this was a new idea. She worked within the war as a nurse, taking detailed ...

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... over a series of blunders in single shift. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: HERALD SUN. Retrieved 04 02, 2014, from http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/nurse-banned-over-a-series-of-blunders-in-single-shift/story-fni0fee2-1226704580649
Klainberg, M., & Dirschel, K. M. (2010). Today's nusring leader: managing, succeeding, excelling. Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Summers, S., & Jacobs, H. (2009). Saving Lives: Why The Media's Portrayal Of Nurses Puts Us All At Risk. New York, United States of America: Kaplan Trade.
Sunday-Telegraph. (2011, March 06). Nurses sacked after horror games with patients revealed. Retrieved from News: http://www.news.com.au/national/nursing-home-horrors-uncovered/story-e6frfkvr-1226016507730
Who we are. (2013, October). Retrieved from Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency: http://www.ahpra.gov.au/About-AHPRA/Who-We-Are.aspx

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