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Florence nightingale contributions
Florence nightingale biography essay
Florence nightingale contributions
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Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820 at the Villa Colombaia in Florence, Italy to a very wealthy and well-established British family. Her father, William Nightingale was a landowner and her mother, Frances Nightingale was a traditional, obedient housewife. At the time that Florence lived, women were not educated and were not expected to do much but marry young, have children, and look after their husbands and homes. Nevertheless, Florence was very close to her father as a child and he noticed she was a smart and different child than most, so he took the responsibility to educate her. He taught her many languages including French, Italian, Greek, German, and Latin. Also, he taught her mathematics, history, and philosophy. As she grew into her teenage years, Florence experienced feelings of worthlessness and depression and was very unhappy and unsatisfied with her life. Unlike her mother, Florence rebelled against the traditional role of becoming a wife, and had bigger plans in her mind. Florence was bothered by the purpose of her life as an upper class woman because she was curious whether she had any responsibility to the poor and what caused poverty.
At the young age of 17, Florence claimed she felt a calling from God that she will embark in a great journey. At age 25, Florence professed to her parents that she wants to dedicate her life to nursing, but her parents were very displeased with this career choice because it was looked down upon. Finally in 1851, at the age of 31 Florence’s father gave her permission to pursue her dreams and Florence went out into the world and forever changed the meaning of nursing. She traveled to Kaiserwerth, Germany where she spent two years training how to become a nurse at the Institut...
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...rsing. With that said, and the fact that Miss Nightingale was such an influential person in the nursing practice, I am inspired to let healthcare challenge me, and to never be afraid of the challenges that I will face everyday.
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Knight, J. (2010). Lessons to be learned. Nursing Standard, 24(49), 64.
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In the todays century, the responsibilities, roles, and opportunities for nursing and nurse education has grown abundantly to that of modern day nurses. Many nurses in the eighteen century were not educated nurses and never attended nursing school; however, they still provided care for the sick, poor, and needy and played a vital role in health maintenance. With the hard work from many notable nurses in history such as Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, and Isabel Robb and the persistence and dedication for change from influential nurses such as Mary Mahoney and Mabel Staupers; nursing today has transformed in many aspects of practice. Although nursing as a profession is continuously evolving throughout the years, the core foundation of nursing hasn’t changed in that nursing is a profession of caring for others and servicing those in need.
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1820. Even in her early life, Florence would find it necessary to help the sick people in her community. As the years went on Florence realized nursing was her future because it was her divine purpose. Her parents were not enthused by her plans to become a nurse and even prohibit her to pursue nursing. It was frowned upon in this time period of a woman with her social background to become a nurse. It was actually in the rights for her to marry a man of means, but when Florence was seventeen she declined to marry the man who offered her hand in marriage. She had her reasons for not accepting the proposal, she new she did not have time for a marriage at this time in her life. Despite the disapproval from her parents Florence set out to chase her dreams of becoming a nurse and enrolled as a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserswerth, Germany.
notices to patients and their families, schedule and lead the meetings. Wishing to be actively involved in the process, I represented nursing along with the charge nurse of the unit and the charge aide.
When one thinks of the evolution of nursing, several noteworthy women come to mind, yet one stands out, Florence Nightingale. In Notes on Nursing, Nightingale says “…put the patient in the best conditions for nature to act upon him.” (1859, p.75) She established standards that reformed the industry. For example; her practices of sanitation and aseptic methods led to a decrease in hospital mortality rates. By keeping records of care given, techniques used and the outcomes; by utilizing these records, she implemented documentation and evidence-based practice. She started the ball rolling on the transition of nursing from a belittled trade to the profession it is now proclaimed to be. Nightingale, in conjunction with other
Florence Nightingale was the Nurse of Nurses. In nursing school she is the first person you will hear speak of. She is known as “The lady with the lamp”. Her theory focused on the adjustment of the environment provided to protect the patient. She thought that a sleeping patient should never be awaken. Noise should always be avoided because it can startle the sleeping patient. This was a serious problem to her. She delegated tasks to other nurses, always keeping the patients safe and away from harm.
Before Nightingale, nurses were lower class citizens that were alcoholics or prostitutes with no to a little education. Florence Nightingale realized that nurses ought to have some education in caring for others and be of a higher class. In 1860, she opened the first nursing school in London that did not accept prostitutes and alcoholics. To signify Nightingale’s view of nursing, Lystra Gretter composed a Hippocratic Oath for nurses called the Nightingale pledge.
“Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion. Remember he is face to face with his enemy all the time, internally wrestling with him” (Nightingale, 1992, p. 22). Fortunately, in the nineteenth century, Florence Nightingale recognized uncertainty could cause harm to her patients (Nightingale, 1992). Equally important to the nursing profession are the nursing theorists, their work, and the evolution of the theories that followed Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing (Alligood, 2014).
Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in nursing and maintained it as an independent profession which was not secondary to the medical profession but equal. *Nightingale 1969 cited by Hoeve et al 2013 The ongoing education and training which supports the nursing as a profession must be maintained. The self-concept of nurses is enormously important in maintaining a professional identity. ‘Nurses’ self-concept can be defined as information and belief that nurses have about their roles, values and behaviours’ (Takase et al. 2002, p. 197; Hoeve et al.
Registered nurses work to contribute good health and prevent illness. They also treat patients and help go through there rehabilitation and also give support and advice to patients family. Registered nurses are general-duty nurses who focus in the achievement of caring for their patients. They are under the supervision of a doctor. As I researched this career It brought more questions to my life. It became a big interest that soon I would have an opportunity to answer my own questions obviously with the help of others.
“Nursing is an art, and if it is to be made an art, requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work...” (Nightingale, 1868)
This is what started her on her mission as a nurse. In 1849 Florence went abroad to study the European hospital system. In 1853 she became the superintendent for the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen in London. In 1854 Florence raised the economic and productive aspect of women's status by volunteering to run all the nursing duties during the Crimean War. With her efforts, the mortality rates of the sick and wounded soldiers was reduced.
Florence Nightingale is a very prominent person in the medical field. She had a strong desire to devote her life to helping others. She is known as the founder of modern medicine. The Nightingale Pledge is taken by new nurses and was named in her honor. The annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. Without her contributions healthcare would not be what it is today.
A theory I can relate to is Nightingales theory, I found her theory to be extremely interesting. A patient health is affected by the environment that they are in, whether it is at the hospital or at their house. Once a patient is discharged the nurse should be aware of the patient home environment, what they have access to, and what they don’t have.
Before the modernization and reform of their profession in the mid-1800s, nurses were believed to perform “women’s work”, which implied menial duties, unskilled service, and an overall lack of skill (Garey, "Sentimental women need not apply"). This mentality was substantiated by the “untrained attendants, [including] past patients, vagrants, and prostitutes,” that performed a variety of nursing tasks (Garey). Florence Nightingale’s nursing experiences during the Crimean War, her subsequent publication of Notes on Nursing, and her work to build up professionalism within the field transformed the way that the world and society viewed nursing. She introduced invigorating ideas of patient care, nursing roles and responsibilities, and was a strong proponent of nursing education. Nightingale’s overall work inspired and changed the profession of nursing, laying the foundation for its
Florence Nightingale, named after the city of Florence, was born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820. She would pursue a career in nursing and later find herself studying data of the soldiers she so cringingly looking after. Born into the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale took the lead role amongst her and her colleges to improve the inhabitable hospitals all across Great Britten; reduce the death count by more than two-thirds. Her love for helping people didn’t go unnoticed and would continue to increase throughout her life. In 1860 she opened up the St. Tomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses before passing August 13, 1910 in London. Her willingness to care for her patients was never overlooked and wound establishing