¶ … Theories Developed by Florence Nightingale and Their Impact on the Nursing Profession Perhaps the most well-known nurse in history is Florence Nightingale; what is less well-known, though, are the theories of nursing that she introduced more than a century and a half ago. Also known as the "Lady of the Lamp," Nightingale's nursing theories were introduced during a highly formative period in medicine, but her compassionate approach to caring for others emerged as an enduring model for the profession that endures to this day (Grant, 2002)
According to Peters (2001), Nightingale established principles of nursing that endure to this day. Nightingale wrote in 1869 that the purpose of nursing was to make the practitioner available to the other, and that to accomplish this level of care requires a particular state of consciousness and a recognition of the participatory nature of the reality of the patient's condition, and that the goal of the nurse is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act (Peters, 2001)
Further, nurse midwives deliver babies and nurses in neonatal, coronary and surgical intensive-care units are responsible for monitoring vital signs, cleaning and monitoring invasive catheters, evaluating heart monitor readouts and managing delicate metabolic states in their patients. Clearly, "Nursing has come a very long way since the days of Florence Nightingale" (Satel, 2000, p
Review and Discussion According to one of her many biographers, Florence Nightingale born in 1820 and died in 1910. During the Crimean War (1854-56), Nightingale was responsible for nursing in the military hospitals at Scutari, Turkey, where she struggled to meet the enormous challenges represented by overcrowded conditions, inadequate sanitation, and a lack of basic medical necessities (Underwood, 2005)
"Because of this," they say, "nursing at that time was considered a temporary career, lasting only until marriage. However, changes in health care and scientific advances were also affecting nursing" (Warbinek & Zilm, 1994, p
The conditions were appallingly unsanitary. There were "ten times more soldiers dying of disease" (typhoid, dysentery and cholera) than from the wounds they had suffered in battle (Fee, et al
From the time she could think and dream about what her life should be Nightingale believed that her passion to help others and to do morally uplifting deeds would supersede the pretensions that her wealthy family had planned for her. After telling her parents that she intended to become a nurse, that it was her destiny to become a nurse in order to serve others' health needs, they were "horrified" (Garofalo, et al
Not all scholars agree that Nightingale was clinically competent, according to a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Nursing Management. She was recognized as a pioneer in hospital reform, in government reform vis-a-vis healthcare, and in nurse education, but "There is certainly no information to support her use of evidence-based practice" while applying nursing care to those in need (Stanley, et al
Florence Nightingale's work is even more appreciated because of the time and the society she was living in. Born in 1820, Nightingale became a nurse at the age of 31, after a long period of fighting against the will of her parents, who believed that such a profession is indemnifying for a woman of her social status (Read, 1986)
Florence Nightingale was a strong supporter of women's rights, believing that women should be able to pursuit carriers. Although a strong supporter of health improvement policies, "Nightingale preferred working behind the scenes to get laws changed and disapproved of women making speeches in public" (Florence Nightingale)
Nightingale's achievements in nursing, hospital administration and statistics were great, but they were even more important because she was a woman living in an all-men society. Florence Nightingale was the first female fellow of the British Statistical Society, but she "recognized the political clout of effective communication; therefore, she recruited men to serve as her delegates in promoting her many causes" (Ferguson, 2004)
"You can't be a proper nurse," she was told, "the nursing schools here are only for white girls. If you go to work at a hospital, you will really be just a servant, mopping floors and cleaning up after the Europeans" (McCord 26)
Thus her perspective of the dangers and unhealthiness of city life were inevitably colored by her witnessing of the consequences. "The most frequent and fatal cause of all is sleeping, for even a few hours, much more for weeks and months, in foul air, a condition which, more than any other condition, disturbs the respiratory process, and tends to produce 'accidental' death in disease'" (Nightingale, Conclusion)
"Trials must be made, efforts ventured -- some bodies must fall in the breach for others to step upon," she wrote in 1846, to her father. Clearly she was seeing that new theories must be applied and new procedures must be embraced for healthcare to advance beyond the primitive state that it was in at that time (Attewell, 1998, p
Accordingly, the colleague would ponder of Nightingale, "how many thousand soldiers […] are now alive owing to your forethought and diligence; how many natives of India in this generation and in generations to come have been preserved from famine and oppression and the load of debt by the energy of a sick lady who can scarcely rise from her bed." (Attewell, 166) For Nightingale, the call of her life's work would constitute a sufficient cause to withdraw from many demands and opportunities in her personal life, where she would fend off such traditional notions as marriage, motherhood and female secondary status in order to serve as a nurse and care provider with total devotion
When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds." (Cook, 237)
Nightingale would also come from the position, as an educator, that a leader's work will be mirrored by the quality of work detectable in those under her charge. As she would philosophically contend, according to a compilation of her writings by Lynn McDonald (1998), the central goal of "education is to teach men not to know, but to do" (McDonald, 26)
Accordingly, "Nightingale defined health as being well and using every power (resource) to the fullest extent in living life." (Tomey & Alligood, 77) This would promote the notion in nursing education of nursing as being centered on the improvement of health prospects, life-expectancy and quality of life
Early Life Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 into a wealthy Unitarian family. She grew up in a household with liberal ideals (Atwell, 1998)
The nurse must use their creativity to apply evidence-based practices to help the patient regain a state of health. A recent academic article highlights the need to apply evidence-based techniques in the education of nurses (Emerson & Records, 2008)