Nursing as a Profession

• Women's roles

  • Caring
  • Supporting
  • Comforting
  • Nurturing
• Women were called to care for others in the community
• Theodor Fliedner reinstituted the order of deaconesses and opened a small hospital and training school in Kaiserswerth, Germany


  1836
• Florence Nightingale's nursing training school is at Kaiserswerth, Germany
• The Crimean war (1854-1856) accentuated the need for nurses
• Nightingale was asked to recruit female nurses for the Crimean war
• Mortality rate decreased from 42% to 2% in 6 months during the Crimean war
• Women's place was in the home - a woman's role is to be a wife and a mother
• Nurses were poorly educated in the mid 1800s
• The "guardian angel" or "angel of mercy" arose in the latter part of 19th century because of Florence Nightingale
• Nurses' acts of bravery during World War II
• Charles Dickens


  Novelist and social critic
• Martin Chuzzlewit

  Novel written by Charles Dickens in 1896
• Florence Nightingale


  "Lady with the lamp"
• Florence Nightingale received an honorarium of 4,500 - used to open a training school "Nightingale training school" in the year 1860
• Clara Barton


  Founder of American red cross
• Clara Barton volunteered as a nurse during the American civil war and organized nursing services
• Linda Richards


  America's first trained nurse
• Linda Richards introduced nurses' notes and doctors' orders and initiated the practice of wearing uniforms
• Mary Mahoney


  First African-American professional nurse
• Mary Mahoney constantly worked for the acceptance of African-American in nursing and for the promotion of equal opportunities
• Lilian Wald


  Founder of public health nursing
• Lilian Wald first offered trained nursing services to the poor in the New York slums
• Lavinia Dock


  • Participated in protest movements for women's rights that granted women the right to vote
  • Allowed nurses to control their profession
  • Founded the American society of superintendents of training school for nurses
• Margarette Higgins Sanger


  • Founder of planned parenthood
  • Public health nurse
• Margarette Higgins Sanger encountered a large number of unwanted pregnancies among the working poor
• Mary Breckinridge


  • Established frontier nursing service
  • Worked with American committee for devastated France - distributed food, clothing and supplies for rural villages
  • Started some of the first midwifery training schools in the US
• Profession


  Occupation that requires extensive education or a calling that requires special knowledge, skills, and preparation
• Professionalism


  Professional character, spirit or methods
• Professionalization


  Process of becoming professional
• Criteria of a profession

  • Specialized education
  • Body of knowledge
  • Service orientation
  • Ongoing research
  • Code of ethics
  • Autonomy
• Nursing has a number of conceptual frameworks that gives direction to nursing practice, education and ongoing research
• Nursing has a tradition of service to others
• Evidenced-based practices are applied in nursing research
• Nurses are expected to do what is considered right regardless of the personal cost
• Autonomy


  • Nursing regulates itself and sets standards for its members - granted the authority to define the scope of its practice, describe function and roles and determine its goals and responsibilities
  • It means independence at work, responsibility, and accountability for one's action
• Personal values

  • Independence
  • Honesty
  • Courage
  • Passion
  • Kindness
• Professional values

  • Altruism
  • Autonomy
  • Human dignity
  • Integrity
  • Social justice
• Roles and functions of a nurse

  • Caregiver
  • Communicator
  • Teacher
  • Client advocate
  • Counselor
  • Leader
  • Manager
  • Case manager
  • Research
• Caregiver


  • Assist the client physically and psychologically while preserving the client's dignity
  • Full care for a completely a dependent client
  • Partial care for the partially dependent client
  • Supportive-educative care