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3d March 2015

Nursing History

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Winkelstein, W. (2009). Florence Nightingale: Founder of Modern Nursing and Epidemiology. Available from http://www.utas.edu.au/library/research [10 March 2009].

The article by Warren Winkelstein deals with the biorgraphy f Florence Nightingale. The author briefly describes her career and summarizes her most outstanding achievements. Florence Nightingale is justly considered as the founder of nursing and epidemiology. She was the first one to lead a team of 38 nurses to provide medical support of the British army in the Crimean war. This was the first significant overseas nursing mission. Nightingale displayed considerable leadership skills and proved to be a good organizer. The author notes that, despite Nightingale’s international fame and recognition, there is little statistical data concerning her activity in the war. This is why he attempts to expand on the topic of health statistics and Nightingale’s contribution into its improvement. The sanitary conditions of hospitals during the war were extremely poor. The wards were crammed, the lack of water supply, primitive sewage system, and low standards of personal hygiene were highly conductive to the spread of infections. The death rate among the patients at the time of Nightingale’s arrival was increasingly high and amounted to 32%. Nightingale and her team attempted to improve sanitary conditions not only by direct actions like cleaning and ventilating the wards, providing better food and clothing for the patients and so on, but also by the attempt to change the military bureaucratic system. Nightingale paid for the remediation from her own income and kept regular statistical records. She was one of the few medical professionals of that time who was fully aware of the importance of health records and statistical calculations. She attempted to persuade the parliament to conduct a census for collecting information about quality of health care and registering all cases of illness or disability. However, this attempt was unsuccessful. The author supposes that the reason for this was that Nightingale’s idea was too much ahead of her time and seemed unrealistic to the contemporary government.

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Arnstein, M. (2009). Florence Nightingale’s Influence on Nursing Available from http://www.utas.edu.au/library/research [23 July 2009]

The article discusses Florence Nightingale’s influence on the development of nursing in the broad historical context. Margaret Arnstein attempts to analyze her professional activity and describe her contribution to the development of modern nursing. She argues that nursing did not exist as an independent professional sphere until Nightingale’s time. Historically, nursing was inseparable from religion and was practiced only in religious orders. Nightingale turned it into a profession by establishing a special school and attempting to increase public awareness of medical issues. Moreover, she developed her own principles of health care that consisted mostly in preventive measures including use of fresh air, suitable diet, and personal hygiene. Nightingale also shared her views on treatment that involved application of drugs as well as surgical treatment. She described psychosomatic symptoms of some diseases, and her approach to this issue is highly reminiscent of modern psychological methods to reassure and encourage a patient as well as to collect data about his state. Although the modern psychological methods, such as indirect interviewing, were not borrowed from Nightingale, she was rather close to discovering them. The author states that Nightingale was one of the first medical workers who realized the importance of maintenance of positive psychological climate and providing moral support to the patients. In her opinion, establishing harmony of mind will bring quicker recovery to the body. Outstanding management talent of Nightingale is also discussed in the article. She discovered numerous ways to increase the productivity of nurses’ work and save time. These ways included improvement of technical equipment of the hospitals, such as construction of permanent sewage systems and providing hot water to every floor of the building. Nightingale also cared for the improvement of nurses’ professional reputation and claimed nursing to be a highly respectable work that requires much skill and strength of character.

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