Nursing as it is today is a product of many decades of development, research, and improvement, which has given room for improved nursing theories, diversification, and higher prestige. In the past, nursing used to be classified with domestic chores where women took care of their sick relatives having received medical skills from their mothers. For this reason, training was not even necessary nor organized training offered to the caretakers. This situation changed with Florence nightingale who felt that there was a need to provide some training to the caretakers to reduce mortality rates.
Overview
Florence Nightingale is considered the mother of nursing since her efforts changed the perspectives associated with nursing. Nightingale brought a revolution in the training aspect of individual nursing principals to women in Britain. This initiative opened a similar trend in the United States, where women who were keen on providing care to women during childbirth got training through instruction manuals and lectures. From here, training for nurses became complex as it is also insisted on carrying out clinical studies to understand complex clinical issues (Ball, 2017). Today nurses require in-depth and specific qualifications and certifications in order to work in a variety of nursing programs.
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History and Statistics Associated with the Evolution of Nursing
Prior to the intervention of Nightingale, the mortality rates were quite high owing to injuries sustained from wars and communicable and infectious diseases. Nightingale was among the first to conduct clinical studies where she established that in every 1000 injured soldiers, 600 of them died as a result of infectious and communicable diseases. With these statistics, Nightingale created a cleaner environment with medical equipment, which helped reduce mortality rates from 60 percent to 2.2 percent (Karimi and Alavi, 2015). Nightingale set precedence for modern nurses as there is insistence on clean environment, which provides a better healing chance for the patients.
Significance to Health Issues
The evolution of nursing since Florence Nightingale has a lot of significance to the healthcare society today more than ever. Prior to Florence Nightingale’s effort to make nursing a more professional undertaking, nurses had little knowledge, which interfered with their decisions making process (Silva-Sobrinho, Zilly, and Porzsolt, 2018). Over the years, there have been efforts to empower the nursing professionals such that they have become well educated, well trained, and possess critical thinking reasons. For this reason, nurses no longer have to wait for doctors since they have the capacity of making complex clinical decisions (Ball, 2017). What this means is that nurses are playing a significant role in reducing mortality rate especially with places with low doctor-patient ratio. Apart from training, Nightingale established that there is a need for nurses to build trusting relationships with their patients as well as being empathetic to them. The nursing code of code is a summary of Nightingale and many other nursing theorists and it outlines how the nurses ought to facilitate their patients' healing process.
Role of the Nurse
The role of the nurse has changed significantly over the years thanks to the evolution of the nursing profession. A few decades ago, nurses were caretakers who ensured that the ailing family members were given what they needed to cope with the illnesses. However, all this changed when Florence Nightingale redefined the role of nurses to be advisors and educators capable of handling the patients' healthcare needs. In the 1970s, the nurses' responsibilities included referring patients to various healthcare professionals, prescribing medication, and overseeing the delivery of community healthcare services (Shetty, 2016). Currently, nurses are more than caretakers they act as autonomous primary care providers who can prescribe medications without oversight from physicians. According to Silva-Sobrinho, Zilly, and Porzsolt (2018), the roles of modern nurses can be summarized as teachers, patients’ advocates, role models, researchers, and team players.
Relevance to the Nursing Practice
The evolution of nursing since Florence Nightingale has had much relevance to the nursing practice. Prior to Florence Nightingale, nursing was not considered a profession but rather an extension of the domestic work assured with women. However, all this changed as the nursing practice established itself as a professional undertaking as it involved organized training. Over the years, the nursing practice has become a complex undertaking owing to the intensity of training, diversification, and professional expectations (Shetty, 2016). The theories that have been developed over the years have outlined how nurses ought to relate with their patients to improve health outcomes.
Conclusion
Nursing has undergone significant changes over the last few centuries thanks to the efforts of Florence Nightingale and other clinical theorists. Prior to Nightingale, nursing was seen as an extension of domestic chores at least in the caretaker role. The women had no form of training since they learned from the women before them. However, Nightingale introduced formal training, which helped nursing to be recognized as a respectable profession. Over the years, the nurses have been empowered through education, which helps them to become critical thinkers capable of making informed and independent decisions. The nurses act in various capacities as advisors, researchers patients advocates, team players, and role models. This evolution has helped to improve healthcare outcomes as well as place nursing at the same level as other professions.
References
Ball, E. (2017). Evolution of contemporary nursing. In Brooker, C., & Waugh, A (Eds.), Foundations of Nursing Practice (pp. 30-61). New York: Elsevier.
Karimi, H., & Masoudi Alavi, N. (2015). Florence Nightingale: The Mother of Nursing. Nursing and Midwifery Studies , 4(2), e29475.
Shetty, A. P. (2016). Florence Nightingale: The queen of nurses. Medical History , 4(1), 44-48.
Silva-Sobrinho, R. A., Zilly, A., & Porzsolt, Z. (2018). Development of the nursing profession: From nursing angel to patient advocate. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice. 8(2), 16-22.
