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atgoals
NursingDefandHistory.pptxWhat is Nursing?
Beginnings to today
Is this it?
How to define it
By what nurses do? Nursing is more than a list of tasks!
What drives nursing to do what they do?
How can we define nursing & highlight the value of nursing?
How can we direct nursing research without a definition?
How can we answer the question, “What is a nurse?”
Virginia Henderson
The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to a peaceful death), that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will, or knowledge, and to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible.
ANA Definition of Nursing
….the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, the prevention of illness and injury, facilitation of healing, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations.
From American Nurses Association website
Huh?
Common elements include nursing as
Caring
Art
Science
Holistic
Adaptive
Concerned with health promotion, health maintenance, and health restoration
A helping profession
The Art
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.
Florence Nightingale
The Science
The most important practical lesson that can be given to nurse is to teach them to observe.
Florence Nightingale
Together, not one or the other!
Synthesize the following to provide high quality care
Empirical knowledge-facts that can be verified
The science
Aesthetics
Good practice of nursing skills
Ethical knowledge
What should be done?
Personal knowledge
Know, reflect, empathize
Can be empirically verified
Knowledge organized into general theories explaining phenomena to nursing
Seeking and generating explanations
Controlled factual evidence
Theory and research developments
Aesthetics
Being a good nurse
Manual skills
Empathy and compassion
Good clinical judgment
Appreciation of art and beauty
Personal is basis for use of therapeutic relationship in nursing
9
Beginnings
Nurse (nutricius)- nourishing
Done since the beginning of time and often considered a woman’s role
Early was focused on banishing evil spirits and little science
Church involved in caring for the poor, eventually handed over to women in church
Virgins and widows
Treatment remained mixture of magic and some science
Continuing Development
Male “nurses” followed soldiers to battle-status and respect
Religious upheaval resulted in shortages of nurses and facilities
Alcoholics and former prostitutes served in hospitals rather than prison
Industrial revolutions allowed more sharing of information, increasing experimentation
Enter Flo
Hospitals still not places of healing and war mortality remained high
Florence Nightingale rejected affluent lifestyle & studied nursing
She used observations to improve health care and lives were saved during the Crimean War
Established training for nurses and brought new respect and dignity to nursing
Early America
Colonial times-little training
By civil war, increase in formal training for nurses improved outcomes
Improved sanitation
Environmental improvements
Good nutrition
Increased interest in improving and protecting health concerns
Victorian Era
Uh-oh
Wives cared for family and husbands provided and ruled the household
Now, nurses single and expected to submit in harmony to the doctor’s authority
Illness rewarded, little incentive to be healthy
Fortunately a time of reformers! Began to establish nursing standards, require licensure to protect the public
20th Century
Nursing impacted by
Wars
Influenza
The great depression
HIV/AIDS
Rapid technological advances
Military Nurse Corps
Red Cross
Nursing Education evolving
Public Health Nursing
Funding for nursing education
Standardized licensing tests
17
The Present
Computers!
Financial crises
Dramatic events
Attacks on World Trade Centers
Natural disasters
The Affordable Care Act
Nursing Pins
