The education process in these early nursing times did not exist. It evolved with the help of several nursing leaders. Most commonly know is Florence Nightingale. She worked to change the sanitary conditions of hospital and advance education for nursing. Today there is several levels of education of nursing.
Fortunately, the nursing uniform has progressed over the years as well as the attitude about the nursing profession. In today’s world nurses seldom wear white, most do not even wear uniforms. The idea that nurses are bedside servants is a thing of the past; along with those white uniform dresses. Nurses have gone from being viewed as bedside servants that take orders from doctors to fast-moving, critical thinking, lifesavers. Being a nurse has always meant more to me than a white dress, it provides excellent job, opportunities, as well as an identity.
Our history gives us a perspective in the traditions we have as nurses and a legacy to pass on to new nurses as they enter the profession. We learn what has influenced, motivated, and affected nurses in the past so that we can use that knowledge to influence our perspective in making changes that will benefit those who enter the profession in the future. Over the years I have observed a change in how we, as nurse and the medical profession, address pain. When I started nursing, you medicated the pain. To put it simply pain was pain – you medicated to relieve the pain.
The hierarchy of Nursing- Medieval Period * Nursing was untaught and instinctive. (Historical Evolution of Nursing, Nursingcrib.com, 2007, WEBSITE) * Viewed by society as a natural job for a woman and it was expected of them to care for children, sick and elderly. (Historical Evolution of Nursing, Nursingcrib.com, 2007, WEBSITE) Middle ages * Nurses had no formal education and were taught with on the job training by more experienced nurses. (Historical Evolution of Nursing, Nursingcrib.com, 2007, WEBSITE) * The work of a nurse was done by the least desirable of women, including prostitutes, prisoners and alcoholics. (Historical Evolution of Nursing, Nursingcrib.com, 2007, WEBSITE) Nightingale Era 19th century * Formal education and services for nurses began (Historical Evolution of Nursing, Nursingcrib.com, 2007, WEBSITE) * Increased educational opportunities and social consciousness helped to enhance the nursing profession.
The report calls for Nurses to assume leadership responsibility in partnership with colleagues in the health sector, in the management cycle for healthcare related programs in the United States. Since the medieval era to the present, the public perceived nurses as health personnel who merely take directives and carried out delegated tasks from physicians. They have been to greater extent still viewed as subordinate to physicians with little opportunity to make strategic contribution to redesign, plan and manage health care programs. The report viewed the top to the bottom style of leadership, where directives are given and are expected to be carried out by subordinates in an all-inclusive health care management. A leader lead by strengths, not title.
Once I started researching a career in nursing I realized that there were a lot more types of nurses then I had originally imagined. I have not decided on which field of nursing I would like to specialize in yet but I just imagine myself as a general nurse, working in a hospital setting. A Registered Nurse (RN) is not a doctor assistant; a RN gets to treat wounds, give IV’s and basically get to treat their own patients. Right now my main priority is to stay focused on taking all necessary steps to pursuing Nursing as a career.Gwendolyn Mink describes most Registered Nurses as working directly with the patients and their families. They are the families’ contact with the medical world, in the hospital and at the patients’ home.
Introduction Nursing is a profession that was known even before our year count started. In history, nursing has been described as caring for those in need of support due to poor health. In the past nursing was not the task of professionals but of those surrounding the ill (Verberk and Kuiper, 2006). Around 1859 a description of nursing as a profession was created from the writings of Florence Nightingale. Due to Nightingale’s efforts to develop nursing into a profession and to provide those practicing with proper education, nursing was professionalised.
Negligence and malpractice are increasing within nursing fields even though nurses and students who will become nurses are educated about their legal and professional responsibilities and limitations. Negligence is a failure of fulfilling the responsibilities that the nurse has which results in malpractice. A nurse can be sued for malpractice when she fails to take care of the patient; it results in patient’s injury, however we should keep in mind that not every case ends with the injury, but still it is a malpractice. Many nurses are not fully committed to perform the skills they should, and they enter the profession only because of benefits. Malpractice can be increasing because of a severe shortage of trained nurses, and it happened because of a few factors: nurses are required to work longer shifts; they can lead to fatigue and increase the risk for an error; also short Nursing courses providing degrees with no sufficient time to train nurses results in malpractice.
Since nursing was seen as a career that needed neither study nor intelligence it was very easy to become a nurse. Florence Nightingale is perhaps the most well known figure in the history of nursing. She overcame a lot to become a nurse and to care for soldiers during the Crimean War. Her dedication to her profession was responsible for having less deaths among the soldiers. Even with these great accomplishments she had not achieved her greatest desire, which was to open a training school for nurses.
Because women traditionally provided nurturance to their own infants, it was assumed these same caring approaches could be extended to sick and injured community members as well. Women who died in child birth or who could not nurse their child had the child nursed by a ‘wet nurse’ (Dietz and Lehozky, 1963). Kelly and Joel (2002) argued that in other societies, care of the sick was a role assigned to medicine men, shamans, or other male tribesmen. Because no formal education in the care of the sick was available, the earliest nurses learned their art through oral traditions passed from generation to generation, from observations of others caring for the sick, and many times, through a process of trial and error (Kelly and Joel, 2002). Wall (2003) asserted that during the early Christian era the nursing ideals of charity, service to others, and self-sacrifice were in harmony with the teachings of the early Christian church.