Florence Nightingale

Florence NightingaleThe matriarch of modern nursingShe was born on May 12, 1820Her parents, Edward and Frances NightingaleThe Nightingales were a well educated, affluent,

aristocratic family.During her childhood, Nightingale’s father educated her

much more broadly and rigorously than other young women of her time were educated.

• In 1837, Nightingale wrote about her calling in her diary; she wrote

“God spoke to me and called me to his service”.

She understood that she was called to become a nurse, she was finally able to complete her training in 1851 when she was accepted training at Kaiserworth, Germany, a Protestant religious community with a hospital facility.

She stayed there approximately three months and, at the end, her teachers declared her to be trained as a nurse.

Following her returned to England, Nightingale began to examine hospital facilities, reformatories, and charitable institutions.

After two years of completing her training she became the superintendent of the hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen in London.

During the Crimean War, Nightingale received a request from Sidney Herbert( a family friend and Secretary of War ) to go to Scutari, Turkey to provide trained nurses to care for wounded soldiers.

To achieve her mission of providing nursing care, she needed to address the environmental problems that existed, including the lack of sanitation, contaminated water, contaminated sheets and blankets, andoverflowing cesspools. In addition, the soldiers were faced with exposure, frostbite, lice infestation, and other opportunistic diseases during their recovery from battle wounds.

Nightingale work in improving these deplorable conditions made her a popular and revered person to the soldiers, but the support of physicians and military officers was less than enthusiastic.

She was called “The Lady of the Lamp” as immortalized in the poem “Santa Filomena” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, because she made her round during the night.

In Scutari, Nightingale became critically ill with Crimean fever, which might have been typhus or brucellosis.

Following the war, Nightingale returned to England to great accolades, particularly from the Royal family (Queen Victoria) and the soldiers who had served in the Crimean War.

She was awarded funds in recognition of this work, which she used to establish a teaching institution for nurses at St. Thomas Hospital and King’s College Hospital in London.

Within a few years after it was founded, the Nightingale School began receiving requests to establish new schools at hospitals worldwide.Florence Nightingale’s reputation as the founder of modern nursing was established

During her life, Nightingale devoted energies to societal issues and causes in an attempt to create social change. She continued to concentrate on army sanitation reform, the functions of army hospitals, sanitation in India, and sanitation and health care of the poor in England.

Her writings:Notes on Matters affecting the health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.Notes on HospitalsReport on Measures Adopted for Sanitary improvements in India from June 1869 to June 1870

Letters:15,000 to 20,000 to friends, acquaintances, allies and opposition from this environment. Her written word was strong and clear and conveyed her beliefs, observations, and desire for changes in health care.

In addition:She received the most powerful visitors in her home to maintain her dialogue with them, plot strategies to support causes, and carry out her work.

In her life time:Nightingale’s work was recognized through the many awards she received from her own country and many other countries.She was able to work into her eighties and died in her sleep on August 13, 1910 at age of 90.

Definition of Nursing According to Florence Nightingale

What nursing has to do is to put the patient in the best condition for the nature to act upon him. Nursing ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet and the proper selection and administration of diet- all the expense of vital power of the patient. Nursing creates the environment most conducive to body’s “reparative processes”.

• Key Concepts of Notes in Nursing (1859/1992)

Manipulation of the physical environment as the major component of nursing care. Stressed the importance of pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness and light. The goal of the nurse is to assist the patient in staying in balance and if the environment of the client is out of balance, the client expends unnecessary energy.

MAJOR ASSUMPTIONSNursing

Nightingale believed that energy woman, at one time in her life, would be a nurse in the sense that nursing is having the responsibility for someone else’s health.

Nightingale wrote Notes on Nursing to provide women with guidelines for providing nursing care and to give advice on how to “think like a nurse”.

PersonIn most of her writings, Nightingale

referred to the person as a patient.Nurses performed tasks to and for the

patient and controlled the patient’s environment to enhance recovery.

The nurse was specifically instructed to ask the patient about his or her preferences; however, Nightingale emphasized that the nurse was in control of the patient’s environment

HealthNightingale defined health as being well and

using every power that the person has to the fullest extent. Additionally, she saw disease as a reparative process that nature instituted from a want of attention. Nightingale envisioned the maintenance of health through the prevention of disease via environmental control; what she described is modern public nursing and the more modern concept of health promotion.

EnvironmentFitzpatrick and Whall describe

Nightingale’s concept of environment as “those elements external to and which affect the health of the sick and healthy person and included everything from the patient.

Theoretical assertionsNightingale believed that disease was a

reparative process disease was nature’s effort to remedy a process of poisoning or decay, or a reaction against the conditions in which a person was placed. In her writings, she often capitalized the word the nature in her writings, thereby suggesting that it was synonymous with God.

LOGICAL FORMNightingale used inductive reasoning

to extract laws of health, disease, and nursing from her observations and experiences. Her childhood education, particularly in philosophy and mathematics, may have contributed to her logical thinking and inductive reasoning abilities.

ACCEPTANCE BY THE NURSING COMMUNITYPractice

Nightingale’s nursing principles remain applicable today. The environmental aspects of her theory (ventilation, quiet, diet, and cleanliness) remain integral components of current nursing care.Education

Nightingale’s principles of nursing training (instruction in scientific principles and practical experience for the mastery of skills)provided a universal template for early nurse training schools beginning with St. Thomas Hospital and King’s College Hospital in London.

ResearchNightingale’s interest in scientific inquiry and

statistics continues to define the scientific inquiry used in nursing research. She was exceptionally efficient and resourceful in her ability to gather and analyze data her ability to graphically represent data was first identified in the polar diagrams. Her empirical approach to solving problems of health care delivery is obvious in the data she often included in her numerous letters.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTNightingale’s theory for

nursing is stated clearly and concisely; Notes on Nursing is Nightingale’s most widely known work.

CRITIQUESimplicity

Nightingale’s theory contains three major relationships

1.Environment to patient2.Nurse to patient3.Nurse to environment

GeneralityNightingale’s theory has been

used to provide general guidelines for all nurses for the last 150 years. The relation concepts (nurse, patient, and environment) are applicable in all nursing setting today.

Empirical precisionConcepts and relationships within

Nightingale’s theory are frequently stated implicitly and are presented as truths rather than tentative, testable statement.

Nightingale advised nurses that their practice should be based on their observations and experiences rather than systematic, empirical research.

Derivable ConsequenceNightingale’s writings direct the nurse to action

on behalf of the patient and the nurse.Nightingale’s view of humanity was consistent

with her theories of nursing. She believed in a creative, universal humanity with the potential and ability for growth and change. She viewed nursing as a divine calling that she relegated the patient to a relatively passive role with his or her wants and needs provided by the nurse.