The evolution of Professional Nursing

To be a nurse is a calling and difficult to describe in words. Who can say why a person would want to do a nurses work, but those who do will tell you there is nothing as fulfilling or rewarding. Nurses stay by the side of those they serve through the worst times and celebrate with patients and families in the best times.

Graduating Class (1900) of Touro Infirmary TrainingSchool for Nurses (Photo courtesy of Touro Infirmary

Archives, NewOrleans, LA)

Health care today

Florence Nightingale is called the mother of modern secular nursing. Born in 1820 in Florence, Italy, this intelligent, upper-class woman made dramatic and universal changes in health care. At age 16, Nightingale was called by God to minister to the sick.

Florence Nightingale

Community Health Nursing Development: Four Stages

Early Home Care (before mid-1800s) District Nursing (mid-1800s to 1900) Public Health Nursing (1900 to

1970) Community Health Nursing (1970 to

present)

Early Home Care Nursing (before Mid-1800s)

Religious and charitable groups Elizabethan Poor Law St. Vincent de Paul Home deliveries Industrial revolution Florence Nightingale & Mary Seacole

Religious and charitable groups

St. Vincent de Paul

Mary Seacole

Florence Nightingale in the Crimea (Photo courtesy ofParke-Davis, a division of Warner-Lambert Company)

During the Civil War, women were instrumental in theeffort to minimize the risk of spreading contagious diseases

amongwounded soldiers. (Photo courtesy of Corbis-Bettmann)

Lillian Wald (Photo courtesy of the American NursesAssociation)

Nurses at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City(Photo courtesy of Visiting Nurses Service of New York)

Isabel Hampton Robb (Photo courtesy of the AmericanNurses Association)

Jane Delano (Photo courtesy of the American NursesAssociation)

Annie Goodrich (Photo courtesy of the American NursesAssociation)

Mamie Hale (Photo courtesy of Historical ResearchCenter, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Library

Mary Mahoney (Photo courtesy of the AmericanNurses Association)

Margaret Sanger (Photo courtesy of the AmericanNurses Association)

Nursing competency ranked second in the Via Christi survey. Some key features of nursing competency are as follow:

The ability to recognize common factors that contribute to, and adversely affect, the physical, mental and social well-being of patients and clients, and be able to take appropriate action.

An understanding of the ethics of health care and the nursing profession and the responsibilities these impose on the nurse’s professional practice.

District Nursing (Mid-1800s to 1900)

Visiting nursing (district nursing) Care of individuals Religious to private philanthropy Health visitors as backbone of primary

health care system

First Visiting Nurse

Public Health Nursing (1900 to 1970)

Expansion to health & welfare of general public

Specialized programs Lillian Wald

First to use term “Public Health Nursing” Teachers College National Organization for Public Health Nursing Henry Street Settlement

National League of Nursing Education

A baby being weighed by a student nurse and a JuniorLeague volunteer in 1929. (Photo courtesy of Touro

InfirmaryArchives, New Orleans, LA)

Community Health Nursing (1970 to present)

Community Health Nursing Public health nursing (epidemiology) Community-based clinics Worksites Schools

Collaboration and interdisciplinary teamwork

Societal Influences on CHN Advanced technology Causal thinking Educational changes Demographic changes and role changes

for women Consumer movement Economic factors

As nurses embrace the future, what is your vision for the nursing profession? This author believes it will be interactions that nourish our human spirits in the places we live and work. Nurses must be deliberate with time, energy and resources as the profession works toward the goal of quality nursing care.

Allows maturity and confidence to develop in practice.

It allows the development of expertise and the refinement of skills

It allows the nursing workforce to be responsive to changes in the management of patients and in meeting emerging care needs.

It supports role success and job satisfaction.

• Registration

• Employment as a nurse

• Desire to improve standards in practice

• To be the best in what you do.

• Added value

• To gain qualifications.

• To enhance personal status.