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Emergent.pdf

The Emergence of the Nursing Profession in America

● Describe what historical events contributed to the idea of hospitals and sick

care in the United States at the beginning of the 19th century. Examine how the

Nurse Society of Philadelphia aided at the beginning of nursing education.

● The American CivilWar demandedwomen to enter the workforce as nurses.

Examine how the Nightingale schools emerged in the late 1800s, what was the

nature of these schools, andwhat did their education emphasize?

● Assess how the nursing profession was organized and diversified by the early

20th century.What were some of the challenges in employment conditions

nurses faced?

● Analyze howWorldWar I revolutionized the nursing profession.What changes

do you see post-War tomodern practices of nursing? Provide a couple of

examples.

● Length: 3–4 pages (not including title page or references page)

● 1-inchmargins

● Double spaced

● 12-point Times NewRoman font

● Title page

● References page

● In-text citations that correspondwith your end references

NursesintheUSArmedForces.pdf

12/1/24, 9:52 PMHistory - Article - nurses in the U.S. armed forces

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nurses in the U.S. armed forces       

Both male and female nurses served the U.S. armed forces during the American Revolutionary War, Civil War, and Spanish-American War, but not until the first decade of the 20th century did the military include a permanent corps of nurses. The Army Nurse Corps (ANC) was established in 1901, the Navy Nurse Corps (NNC) in 1908. The U.S. Air Force was created in 1947, and the Air Force Nurse Corps in 1949. As part of the Department of the Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps is supported by the NNC.

The nursing profession changed greatly in the last half of the 19th century. The Crimean War (1854–55) spurred Florence Nightingale, a wealthy English gentlewoman, to promote better nursing care for wounded British soldiers. Her reforms were well known and emulated in the United States.

In 1863 the International Committee of the Red Cross was founded in Switzerland to organize permanent, neutral volunteer societies in all countries to care for sick and wounded soldiers. Clara Barton, renowned for her volunteer nursing during the Civil War, founded the American Red Cross (ARC) in 1881. Congress chartered the ARC in 1900, requiring it to furnish volunteer aid to sick and wounded personnel in time of war and also to civilians and military alike in peacetime disasters.

In the 30 years following the Civil War, nursing responsibilities expanded as understanding of disease improved. That, in turn, required higher levels of training. Nursing schools were established and nursing textbooks written. Nursing specialties developed in schools and in public and occupational health. Thus, the newly formed ANC and NNC could require only trained nurses; moreover, the statutes required these nurses to be women. The ARC worked closely with military nurses, acting as a reserve force. Both army and navy nurses modeled their own capes for outdoor wear a!er the ARC cape with its distinctive red lining.

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The members of the newly established nurse corps had to work within two professions, each with its own hierarchy. In the medical hierarchy, physicians and surgeons diagnosed and treated patients while nurses, subordinate to doctors' orders, cared for them during recovery. The military hierarchy included medical o"icers—male physicians, surgeons, and dentists—who were commissioned o"icers, and hospital corpsmen, who were noncommissioned enlisted men. The military nurses were neither enlisted nor commissioned, although they were generally treated as o"icers. Their anomalous status compromised their authority with the enlisted corpsmen. They were granted relative rank in 1920 and finally gained full commissioned rank in 1947.

In the first half of the 20th century, through two world wars, male nurses were excluded from the military nursing corps, while female physicians and surgeons were excluded from the military medical corps. The ANC admitted men in 1955, the NNC in 1965.

Military nurses have died, been captured, and/or killed in line of duty. In World War II, for example, six army nurses died in Anzio, Italy, in two separate enemy bombardments. Eighty-two army and navy nurses were captured by Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1941–42. Five were repatriated a!er five months, but the remainder were held for more than three years in prison camps, until liberated by American forces. One army nurse became a prisoner of war in Germany for four months.

During the early years of the Vietnam War the ANC sent only its male nurses to Vietnam, some of them repeatedly. Neither the men nor the women thought that policy was fair, and eventually some 7,500 American military women served in Southeast Asia, the majority of them army nurses. One died of shrapnel wounds, another was killed in the crash of a military transport plane, and six others died in the line of duty.

Military nurses have heavily influenced the nursing profession. During peace and war they serve not only the men and women in uniform but also their families and those who have retired, thus becoming familiar with a wide range of nursing practice. Moreover, they function in varied locations, many of them remote and inhospitable, as in jungles, deserts, and arctic cold. The exigencies of war o!en call upon them to do far more than nurses are commonly expected to do. Their experiences have added to the body of military nursing knowledge. In World War I, for example, some were called upon to close incisions and place drains in wounds. In World War II they ordered lab work, independently started intravenous injections and medicines, and changed dressings. Flight nurses o!en carried out duties normally considered a physician's work. Whether on the ground or in flight, if no physician was available, the nurse did the job at hand. During the Korean War they treated open wounds and routinely closed abdominal incisions. The war in Vietnam required them to go even further, inserting

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chest tubes, performing tracheotomies, and completing amputations.

As of 2000, nurses in the ANC, NNC, and AFNC number approximately 10,000. Shortages have occurred throughout their history, particularly in wartime. In World War II, for example, Congress in 1943 created a Nurse Cadet Corps program that granted free tuition, books, uniforms, and stipends to encourage student nurses to join the military. In the 1950s and 1960s lack of qualified female applicants helped bring about the admission of men to the service nurse corps.

On 11 November 1993 a bronze statue memorializing the women veterans of Vietnam was dedicated in the Constitution Gardens section of the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C., near the Vietnam War Memorial. Four figures in military uniform are shown, three women and a man. One woman holds the wounded man across her knee, supported on a pile of sandbags. Another looks skyward, as if for a rescuing helicopter. The third, her back to the others, keeps watch. Together with the wounded man, they complete a circle of valor.

Further Information

Reeve, Connie L. "The Military Women's Vanguard: Nurses." In It's Our Military, Too! Women and the Military. Edited by Judith Hicks Stiehm. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1996

Sarnecky, Mary. A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.

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https://chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https%3a%2f%2fonline.infobase.com%2fAuth%2fIndex%3faid%3d239824%26itemid%3dWE52%26articleId%3d572484

Record Information

From: Encyclopedia of American Military History, Second Edition

By: Jean Ebbert

Published: 2019

Record Type: Encyclopedia Entry

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American women in World War II Angels of Bataan Army nursing Cadet Nurse Corps Men in nursing

Military nurse Nursing United States Army Nurse Corps United States Navy Nurse Corps

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