Florence Nightingale: The Mother of Modern Nursing

“Nursing is the art of utilizing one’s environment for his or her own recovery”

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Florence Nightingale

• May 12, 1820 “International Nurses Month” - Aug 13, 1910
• is the first nurse theorist well known for developing the Environmental Theory
• She highlights the role of the environment in nursing

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Four Meta Paradigms

• Person
• Health
• Environment
• Nursing

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Early Life

• Known as the “Mother/Founder of Modern Nursing” (1865)
  • nurses already exists before, however, they were not entirely recognized as professionals until Nightingale came
• “The Lady with the Lamp”
• Born in Florence, Italy on the 12th day of May 1820 and was named after the city of her birth. She has her own statue in the city in honor of her
• Her older sister is Frances Parthenope
• Her mother, Frances (Fanny) Nightingale, hailed from a family of merchants and took pride in socializing with people of prominent social standing
• Her British family belonged to a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family. She is specifically from Great Britain.
• Her father, William Nightingale, a wealthy landowner who had inherited two estates; one at Lea Hurst called Derbyshire, and the other in Hampshire, called Embley Park (now a school) when Nightingale was 5 years old
• Her father provided her with a classical education, including studies in German, French, and Italian
• She is also excellent in Mathematics (Statistics)
• From a very young age, Nightingale was active in Philanthropy, ministering to the ill and poor people
• Inspired by what she took as a call from God in February 1837 (17 y/o), Florence announced her decision to enter nursing in 1844 (24y/o), despite the intense anger and distress of her mother and sister
• Rebelled against the expected role for a woman of her status
• Motivated by Elizabeth Blackwell at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, first ever woman doctor in US
• Despite the objections of her parents, Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student in 1844 at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserswerth, Germany

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Nightingale’s Personal Life

• She was very attractive and charming but she rejected a suitor, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, because she was convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her calling for nursing
• The allowance given to her by her father is of 500 euros (roughly 25k euros or 50k dollars in present) during this time allowed her to still live comfortably and pursue her career

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Her Works and Appointment

• She regarded the experience in the Lutheran Hospital in Germany as a TURNING POING IN LIFE, and issued her findings anonymously in 1851: The Institution of Kaisenswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc. was her first published work

• In 1853, Florence Nightingale accepted the position of superintendent at the institute for the care of sick gentlewomen (invalid women) in Upper Harley Street, London. She held this position until October 1854

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Crimean War

• In March 1853, the Crimean War broke out between Russia and Turkey, with British and French forces aiding Turkish armies in repelling the advance of Russians

• Soldiers began going down with Cholera (water born disease that causes dehydration and diarrhea) (caused the death of Apolinario Mabini) and Malaria (from mosquitos)

• Several nurses offered help but public protest was made

• Florence Nightingale contributed in this war

• On October 21 1854, she and a staff of 38 women volunteer nurses, trained by Nightingale including her Mai Smith, were sent across Black Sea from Balaklava in the Crimea, where the main British camp was based

• Barracks hospital were so fatal to the patients because of overcrowding, defective sewers and lack of ventilation

• She advocated sanitary living conditions. Consequently, she reduced deaths in the army during peacetime and turned attention to the sanitary design of hospitals. She also requested for a French chef using her own money.

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The Lady with the Lamp

• During the war, Nightingale gained the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp” deriving from a phrase in a report in The Times: by William Howard Russell

“She is a ministering angel without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow’s face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. 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”

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