Virginia Henderson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Having been named after the state of Virginia, she moved there when she was four years of age. She attended Bellevue, a preparatory school her grandfather owned. Then she furthered her education at the Army School of Nursing in Washington, D.C. and took courses at Teacher’s College, where she graduated in 1921.
Henderson first practiced nursing at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City. Then in 1924 she started teaching in Virginia at Norfolk Protestant Hospital, where she was the first teacher in the school of nursing. She later returned to New York to obtain Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Teacher’s College, where she then taught for 16 years and practiced nursing at teaching hospitals.
Henderson saw a need to update the definition of nursing from the era of Florence Nightingale, the first nursing theorist. The emergence of modern medicine outdated the significance of principles from Nightingale’s time. Henderson's definition of nursing states:
The nurse does for others what they would do for themselves if they...
Anna Julia Cooper was born August 10, 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina. When Cooper’s mother, Hannah Haywood, gave birth to her it was
In particular, the use of Florence Nightingale’s theory of nursing as the basis of my new practice had allowed me to begin with the basics and work my way forward toward a more modern and holistic approach to nursing care. While Florence’s work focused mainly on the military and her care of soldiers, she began to establish schools of nursing to promote nursing education and to encourage people to view nursing as a viable profession, (Alligood, 2014. 63). Nightingale’s focus may have been care of the military, but she made great strides on getting recognition for nursing and her theories still affect the practice of nursing today. In the article, Nurses as Leaders, the author proposes that nurse leaders have made great strides since Nightingale’s time when nurses were conscripted to help care for wounded soldiers. Such a setting required these early nurse pioneers to rely on critical thinking and quick action in order to save lives. The author goes on to discuss how a change in nursing occurred in the early 20th century as new management styles emerged, most notable the “Scientific Management,” model. This style placed doctors at the top, then nurse managers, and on down to bedside care staff. Though this did allow some nurses the ability to move upward, nurses resented a doctor being in charge of their teams as the work of a physician and that of a nurse are two very different practices, ("Nurses as Leaders," 2016). This is quite different from the modern concept of a nurse executive as leader of
One of the many theorists that followed the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, was Merle Mishel (Alligood, 2014). However, Florence Nightingale’s theory is different
Nursing was not always the profession we know it as today. “Nurses were often lower class, usually had no education, and were often alcoholics, prostitutes, and women who were down on their luck” (Finkleman & Kenner, 2013, p. 9). There was a high morality rate due to the lack of training and unkept environment the patients stayed in. However, when Florence Nightingale came into the nursing world everything changed. She believed that nurses shouldn’t be lower-class alcoholic women but women of higher class with an education. Therefore, she opened a school in London to train and educate women because “Nursing is an art and a science” (Masters, 2015, p. 29). She believed an average person should be able to understand medical
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.
Since its establishment as a profession more than a century ago, Nursing has been a source for numerous debates related to its course, methods and development of nursing knowledge. Many nursing definitions and theories have evolved over time. Furthermore it is in a constant process of being redefined.
The infamous nursing pioneer, Dorothea Elizabeth Orem, set the bar for nurses worldwide. She was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where she graduated from high school in 1931. While in college, she pursued her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing Education and she also earned her Masters of Science in Nursing Education. When she first began practicing, she worked at Providence Hospital in Washington D.C. She then continued her early career at St. John’s with the position of administration. Once she achieved her advanced degrees, she became director of the Providence Hospital School of Nursing in from 1945-1948 in Detroit, Michigan. While directing at this particular school of nursing, Orem also taught biological sciences...
Aside from Florence Nightingale, there are other icons in the history of nursing. For example, some important individuals are Virginia Henderson, Dorothy Johnson, Martha Rogers, Abraham Maslow, and Sister Callista Roy. These icons believed that the goal of nursing is to help clients, reduce stress, to help identify their needs, prevent illness, and promote health (O’Neill, pg. 4, 2014). All of these principles play a major role in the nursing profession. Some other their frameworks or principles are involved with the fourteen fundamentals needs, 7 behavioral subsystem in an adaptation model, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, evidence-based practice, primary caring, advance practice nursing, cultural competence, holistic approach, primary prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention (O’Neill, pg. 4, 2014). These changes has improved and reformed many aspect of
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
This paper is a first attempt at forming and articulating my own philosophy of nursing.
There are set definitions of nursing made by every nurses association and dictionary. However, nursing goes beyond the definition and has distinct meaning to each individual nurse whether they are aware of the meaning or not. Several nurses have chosen to publicize their beliefs about nursing into their own nursing theory. Other nurses may have ideas similar to these theories, completely different from the theories, or a combination of multiple theories. Some nurses may have never even considered what nursing truly means to them. However, it isn’t until nurses sit down and truly look at what nursing means to them that they can fulfill their duties as a nurse to their full potential. In any philosophy of nursing there are four metaparadigms
“The term nursing science was rarely used in the literature until the late 1950s. However, since that time there has been an increasing emphasis, one might even say a sense of urgency, regarding the development of a b...
“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)
Virginia Henderson was born on November 30, 1897 in Kansas City, Missouri. She enrolled in the Army School of Nursing in Washington, DC in 1918 and received her diploma in 1921. Henderson also obtained both her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees in nursing education at Teachers College at Columbia University in 1934. She also taught there for fourteen years are she graduated. Henderson’s memorable work also includes working as a research associate at Yale University School of Nursing, revising Bertha Harmer’s Textbook of the Principles and Practice of Nursing, directing the Nursing Studi...
Nursing has been and always will be a profession that is constantly changing. Nurses were once prostitutes, thieves, and women who were forced to practice as a nurse instead of serving jail time. Today, however, nursing is looked at as one of the most respected and well-regarded careers. There were several people who contributed to the change in nursing from years ago to what it is today. Virginia Henderson was one of those people. Called the first lady of nursing by many, Henderson is credited with creating the definition of nursing.