A Historical Nursing Figure Assignment
A Historical Nursing Figure Assignment Guidelines: 3 pages of body including introduction but not counting the reference page.
1. Select an historical nursing figure that interests you. Your interest might be related to the period of time in history that they lived, their particular field of interest, or their special accomplishments.
2. To learn more about this person you must complete a literature search. To accomplish this you may use the library data base: e.g. CINAHL Type in keyword and find 3-5 articles scholarly sources (books, articles, or professional website) published within the past 6 years. Websites must be from sponsoring professional organizations in nursing. Reference list and citations must be in APA format
3. Write an outline to follow. Here are the general categories to help you organize your thoughts:
a. General introduction of the individual and the area of interest or particular accomplishment that you plan to discuss
b. The purpose of the paper, clearly state what you intent to accomplish through this paper
c. The body of the paper (middle) includes:
i. Major points you want to make about the individual, the specific accomplishment/s of the individual, their contribution to changes in health care, healthcare systems, and/or social justice. Be sure that each point is supported by the literature and referenced using APA format.
ii. Your reflection of the impact of this person on your perception of nursing particularly new ideas related to your role as a nurse.
iii. Examine your values and beliefs in relation to those of the historical leader or theorist, any similarities in nursing metaparadigm, and implications for nursing practice How are the similar? Why did you choose him/her?
d. The conclusion: A summary of your main points
4. You must use APA format
5. Make sure that you include
a. A title page
b. A running head
c. Page numbers
d. Citations in the body of your paper to avoid plagiarism
e. A reference list.
A Historical Nursing Figure Assignment
Professional nursing holds a unique place in the American health care system. As members of the largest health care profession, the nation’s 3.1 million nurses work in diverse settings and fields and are frontline providers of health care services. While most nurses work in acute-care settings such as hospitals, nurses’ expertise and skills extend well beyond hospital walls. Working independently and with other health care professionals, nurses promote the health of individuals, families, and communities. Millions of Americans turn to nurses for delivery of primary health care services, health care education. and health advice and counseling. Nurses are critical links in maintaining a cutting-edge health care system.Nursing continues to be an indispensable service to the American public.
21st century nurses preparing to care for a patient in a modern acute care hospital.While many may think of a nurse as someone who takes care of hospitalized patients, nurses also fill a wide variety of positions in health care in many varied settings, working both collaboratively and independently with other health care professionals. For example, most Americans are familiar with home care nurses who provide a plethora of nursing and health care services to patients in their homes. School nurses have a long history of providing health services to school children from kindergarten through high school. Nurses play a major role in delivering care to those residing in long-term-care facilities such as nursing homes. Workers with job-related health concerns often seek out nurses employed by business and industry. Many people visit a nurse practitioner as their primary caregiver. Expectant mothers often prefer nurse midwives as their health care providers during pregnancy and childbirth. And each day, in operating rooms across the country, nurse anesthetists insure that patients undergoing surgery receive safe anesthesia care. Today, schools of nursing compete for the brightest applicants, and nursing is highly regarded as an excellent career choice for both women and men.
Florence Nightingale
Florence NightingaleMost people think of the nursing profession as beginning with the work of Florence Nightingale, an upper class British woman who captured the public imagination when she led a group of female nurses to the Crimea in October of 1854 to deliver nursing service to British soldiers. Upon her return to England, Nightingale successfully established nurse education programs in a number of British hospitals. These schools were organized around a specific set of ideas about how nurses should be educated, developed by Nightingale often referred to as the “Nightingale Principles.” Actually, while Nightingale’s work was ground-breaking in that she confirmed that a corps of educated women, informed about health and the ways to promote it, could improve the care of patients based on a set of particular principles, she was the not the first to put these principles into action.
Nursing and Hospital Care in the United States
The Philadelphia Almshouse, 1835Throughout history most sick care took place in the home and was the responsibility of family, friends, and neighbors with knowledge of healing practices. In the United States, family-centered sickness care remained traditional until the nineteenth century. Sick care delivered by other than family and close acquaintances was generally limited to epidemics and plagues that periodically swept through towns and cities. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, urbanization and industrialization changed the way in which—and in many cases the place in which—sick individuals received care. Hospitals began to proliferate to serve those who were without the resources to provide their own care, and as hospitals increased in numbers so did the demand for caregivers who would be able to deliver thoughtful care to the patients in them. Early nineteenth-century hospitals were built mainly in more populated sections of the country, generally in large cities. Nursing care in these institutions differed enormously. In hospitals operated by religious nursing orders, patients received high quality care. But, in other institutions, nursing care was more variable, ranging from good in some hospitals, to haphazard and poor in others.
