Florence Nightingale
Summary
TLDRThis lecture delves into the life and impact of Florence Nightingale, a pivotal figure in nursing history. Born into wealth, Nightingale defied societal norms by pursuing nursing as her divine calling. Her work during the Crimean War, improving soldier hygiene and drastically reducing mortality rates, earned her the title 'Lady with the Lamp.' Nightingale's philosophy emphasized holistic care, considering environmental and mental factors in healing. She revolutionized nursing education, advocating for secular training accessible to all, regardless of background. Her legacy continues to inspire, with her principles reflected in modern nursing practices and education.
Takeaways
- π Florence Nightingale is considered the most important figure in the history of nursing.
- π Born into wealth, Nightingale defied societal expectations by pursuing nursing as her career.
- π Her religious calling at the age of 16 influenced her decision to enter nursing.
- πΌ She trained in France with the Sisters of Mercy and in Germany with the deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, combining Catholic and Protestant nursing practices.
- π Nightingale was a prolific writer, documenting nursing practices and establishing a curriculum.
- π₯ During the Crimean War, she improved hospital conditions, leading to a significant drop in mortality rates among soldiers.
- π¦ Known as the 'lady with the lamp,' her work in Crimea solidified her as an icon in nursing.
- π« She was instrumental in the redesign of St. Thomas's Hospital and the establishment of nursing education standards.
- π Nightingale's influence extended to public health, advocating for better living conditions and hygiene.
- π Her approach to nursing emphasized holistic care, including mental outlook and environmental factors.
- ποΈ In 2020, the Houses of Parliament paid tribute to Nightingale and all nurses, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Q & A
Who is Florence Nightingale and why is she important?
-Florence Nightingale is considered the most important person in the history of nursing. She is famous for her work in nursing education and her influence on public health, making her a central figure in women's history, nursing history, history of medicine, and military history.
What was Florence Nightingale's background and early life like?
-Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy English family. Her father's side were landowners, and her mother's side were wealthy merchants. She was given a typical education for a woman of her time and was expected to make a good marriage, but she received a divine calling to work in nursing.
How did Florence Nightingale's religious beliefs influence her career?
-Florence Nightingale had a strong sense of vocation and believed she was called by the Divine to work in nursing. This calling gave her the confidence to pursue nursing despite the cultural limitations and her parents' objections.
What was Florence Nightingale's approach to nursing?
-Florence Nightingale believed in holistic care, emphasizing the importance of the environment, hygiene, cleanliness, and natural light in the healing process. She saw nursing as supporting the natural healing powers of the human body.
What is the significance of the Crimean War in Florence Nightingale's career?
-The Crimean War was a turning point in Florence Nightingale's career. She became known as the 'lady with the lamp' and an icon of nursing during this time. She improved the conditions for soldiers, leading to a significant drop in mortality rates and establishing her ideas about nursing.
How did Florence Nightingale revolutionize nursing education?
-Florence Nightingale developed a curriculum for nursing that included both hands-on training in wards and in-class training. She emphasized the importance of hygiene and practical aspects of nursing, and her approach was secular, open to nurses from all backgrounds.
What was Florence Nightingale's role in the redesign of St. Thomas's Hospital?
-Florence Nightingale oversaw the rebuilding of St. Thomas's Hospital to reflect her principles of nursing. The hospital was designed in a pavilion style with separate buildings connected by walkways to improve hygiene and health.
How did Florence Nightingale's work influence public health?
-Florence Nightingale's work in nursing and her emphasis on cleanliness and hygiene had a significant impact on public health. She was concerned with the conditions around healing and her practices became standard in nursing and public health.
What was Florence Nightingale's stance on the role of religion in nursing?
-Despite her religious beliefs, Florence Nightingale believed that nursing should be secular. She advocated for nurses to be trained regardless of their social class, educational background, or religious beliefs.
How is Florence Nightingale remembered and celebrated today?
-Florence Nightingale is remembered as a pioneer in nursing and public health. Her birthday is celebrated as International Nurses Day, and she is honored for her contributions to the field. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her image was projected onto the Houses of Parliament in England as a tribute to nurses.
Outlines
π Florence Nightingale: The Icon of Nursing
Florence Nightingale is introduced as the most important figure in the history of nursing, celebrated even 200 years after her birth. She is recognized for her influence on women's history, nursing, medicine, and military history. Born into a wealthy English family, she faced societal expectations but felt a divine calling to nursing. Despite her parents' initial resistance, she pursued her career, drawing inspiration from both Catholic and Protestant nursing practices. Her work emphasized the importance of holistic care, including environmental and mental aspects, and she is known for her writings that established nursing as a serious discipline.
π₯ Pioneering Nursing Practices
This section discusses Florence Nightingale's pioneering work in nursing, particularly her administrative and political roles within religious orders. It highlights her visits to Paris and Germany to learn from the Sisters of Mercy and the deaconesses of Kaiserworth, respectively. Nightingale's approach to nursing was holistic, focusing on the environment and the natural healing process. She believed in supporting the body's natural curative powers and emphasized the importance of mental outlook in healing. Her writings, especially 'Notes on Nursing,' were groundbreaking, as they formalized nursing knowledge and practices.
π‘ The Lady with the Lamp: Crimean War and Hygiene Crusade
Florence Nightingale's work during the Crimean War is highlighted, where she became known as 'the lady with the lamp.' Despite initial resistance from the military, she insisted on improving the conditions for soldiers, leading to a significant drop in mortality rates. Her efforts focused on hygiene, establishing laundries, and fundraising for better facilities. This period solidified her ideas on nursing and the importance of training, leading to the rebuilding of St. Thomas's Hospital and the development of nursing curriculums that emphasized hands-on experience and practical knowledge.
π Establishing Nursing Education
Florence Nightingale's influence on nursing education is explored, including her role in rebuilding St. Thomas's Hospital and developing nursing curriculums. She advocated for secular nursing training, accessible to individuals from all backgrounds, focusing on practical, hands-on experience supplemented by classroom instruction. Nightingale's approach to nursing education emphasized standard training for all nurses, regardless of their future roles in hospitals or the community, and she played a significant role in aligning midwifery with the nursing curriculum.
ποΈ Legacy and Tribute to Nurses
The final section reflects on Florence Nightingale's enduring legacy, particularly during challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It mentions the tribute paid to her and all nurses, where the Houses of Parliament in England were lit up on International Nurses Day. The tribute recognized the dedication and service of healthcare workers,δ½η°δΊNightingale's influence on the nursing profession and the public's gratitude towards those who care for others.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Florence Nightingale
π‘Nursing
π‘Crimean War
π‘Holistic Care
π‘Public Health
π‘Religious Calling
π‘Deaconesses
π‘Notes on Nursing
π‘St. Thomas's Hospital
π‘Secular Nursing
π‘International Nurses Day
Highlights
Florence Nightingale is considered the most important person in the history of nursing.
Her influence spans across women's history, nursing, medicine, and military history.
Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy English family and named after the city of her birth.
She received a divine calling at the age of 16, feeling a sense of vocation to work in the world.
Her parents were initially against her career in nursing due to her social standing.
Florence Nightingale's work emphasized the importance of holistic care.
She believed in the natural healing powers of the human body and the role of nursing in facilitating this.
Florence Nightingale wrote extensively about nursing, establishing it as a serious field of study.
She trained with the Sisters of Mercy in Paris and the deaconesses in Germany, drawing from both Catholic and Protestant nursing practices.
Her work during the Crimean War, where she became known as the lady with the lamp, significantly reduced mortality rates among soldiers.
Florence Nightingale's approach to nursing included attention to environmental factors like hygiene and natural light.
She was instrumental in rebuilding St. Thomas's hospital in London, incorporating her principles of nursing into the design.
Florence Nightingale developed a nursing curriculum that included both hands-on training and classroom instruction.
She emphasized that nursing training should be secular and accessible regardless of social class or background.
Florence Nightingale's influence extended to the standardization of midwifery training.
Her work is commemorated annually on International Nurses Day, which falls on her birthday.
In 2020, the Houses of Parliament in England were lit up in her honor during International Nurses Day.
Transcripts
in this lecture we're going to be
looking at the figure of Florence
Nightingale who's the single most
important person in the history of
nursing as many of you will already know
and I suspect many of you have already
studied her in the context of your
education so Florence Nightingale is
probably one of the most famous people
in the world even 200 years after her
birth and this is partly because she's
sitting at a Nexus of a number of
different
aspects of our culture right now so
women's history so she's included on a
lot of sites that do with have to do
with women's history nursing history
history of medicine military history so
she's been influential in in public
health so all of these areas uh Nursing
education and so when you go looking
she's everywhere so almost every nursing
school website I've come across has a
lot to say about her so she's clearly
just a absolutely central figure and I
will be looking at some of her ideas but
I'll also be highlighting some of her
religious ideas because I think that is
one aspect that often uh doesn't get
looked at in these other these other
forums so who was Florence night
Andale she was born into a wealthy
English family uh on her father's side
they were land owners so Gentry and on
her mother's side wealthy merchants and
so she had a typical she was born in
Florence where her family were on an
extended vacation so she was named after
the city she was born in she born in
Italy and then when they returned she
was given a typical education for a
woman at the time and so many of you
will know at this time in countries like
England and later in Canada women had
very few rights they were not permitted
to go to university they couldn't hold
degrees they couldn't practice
professions like law and so on so very
kind of even for upper class women it
would be a very limited scope and so it
as would have been typical of the time
she would have just been expected to
make a good marriage um with somebody of
a similar class to herself so so what
what becomes different here so this is
even
before that early feminist movement
starts uh starts to build in the
Victorian period and so we're told that
uh she received a Divine calling so she
has a sense that she's meant to do
something with her life to and that will
give her this sense of meaning and
purpose and we're told according to her
biography and this is completely
believable that her parents were
absolutely appalled because a woman of
her social position was not expected to
work um and so the idea of her working
they really pushed back against this for
many many years the idea of her moving
outside of a family setting and also um
this sort of social setting we're going
to see is very similar to what we see
with um sicile Saunders and it's worth
thinking about I don't pretend to know
what was why they're so similar but uh
definitely this idea of pushing against
what's expected of you as a woman what's
expected of you for your social class
and we're told also that particularly
wanting to go into nursing this would
have been seen as something unheard of
uh and I had actually I've actually
heard of this in the 1950s that families
would object because it was seen was
almost seen as being a servant so uh you
know taking care of people so so she's
sort of kicking against the traces in a
number of different ways when she starts
wanting to have a career outside of her
home
so Florence night Andale actually was
known for writing a great deal so we
have a lot of information about her
and unlike a lot of the other topics I'm
covering in this course there's a lot
written on Florence Nightingale so we
know from her letters and um her
writings that she had some kind of what
we would call I don't know if you call
it a conversion experience or kind of a
call when she was around 16 years old so
according to her own own account uh I'll
just I have the quote here I don't think
any words had a fuller possession of My
Mind through life than Christ putting
himself in the place of the sick the
infirm and the Prisoner and so at this
age she has the sense of vocation so of
being called by the Divine to do this
work in the world and it's often been
said in religious studies when we look
at World cultures that that can become
one of the only ways that women can
override that cultural um limitation
right so we saw with the um nursing
orders that those women were playing
administrative roles and political roles
that they would not have been able to do
if they had been in a purely secular
setting so in a sense this overriding
idea of that this is a call from God
allows them to it also gives them the
confidence I think to to move forward on
their on what they want to do and we can
see this goes right back to the very
first lecture of about the the early
Christian communities and the idea from
uh the gospel of Matthew that you're to
to work uh with the sick the infirm and
the
Prisoner and so while Florence
Nightingale would have been Church of
England Anglican she's not Catholic uh
obviously same book so uh these are
Christian ideals and would be be very
hard for her parents if they say they're
Christian to to argue with um so it
becomes also a very effective way of
arguing for this and so apparently she
refused a proposal of marriage and her
parents eventually relented and allowed
her to go and train so one of the first
things that she does is she makes uh
visits to to Paris and to Germany so
France and Germany and um in the I find
it very interesting and and as somebody
who works in religious studies not
surprising that almost all the
biographical material just skirts this
hole they just give it one line but what
she does is she goes to France and works
with the Sisters of Mercy and so she's
developing in her own mind what this is
going to look like so she's looking at
Best Practices that exist so she goes to
work with the Sisters of Mercy in Paris
and this would have been a nursing order
so I'm not going to talk about that
because we I already did a whole lecture
on that but the other place she goes to
is Germany and she works with um what
our called the decises of Kaiser worth
and so this is a Protestant form of of a
nursing order and so uh many people have
not heard of this it was founded by uh
Theodore and Frederica flatner he he was
a Lutheran P pastor and his wife and
they developed this idea of the deacon
and so I I talked at some length about
deacons in in those first lectures so
this is a continuation and so I think
it's it's very destructive that these
practices continue over many over a
millennia essentially and in a sense the
role of the deacon has been revived
beginning in the Victorian time within
protestantism because with the
Reformation the protestan tradition does
a away of the monasteries and the
convent so there's sort of no place that
these orders are being trained so this
is one of the first uh sort of early
versions of training nurses and so it
was done in in Germany uh under the
offices of the Lutheran Church and so
Florence Nightingale goes to train with
these deaconesses in Germany so she's
drawing on both a Catholic and a
Protestant uh approach to
nursing it was actually a former student
of mine that introduced me to some of
the the intricacies of um Florence
nightingale's philosophy of Nursing and
uh so the idea of the these dimensions
of care and it's very clear that nursing
from this point um and probably from the
beginning was more open to what we would
refer to as holistic care and without a
doubt uh nurses have been I've in my
experience anyway open to various forms
of alternative healing as well and um so
we see with Florence Nightingale and
this is why she's also important uh in
the anals of of Public Health that she
was very concerned with all the the
things around healing so it wasn't just
about for instance performing a surgery
so the environment the person's living
in uh hygiene cleanliness uh natural
light all of these things are part of of
what becomes standard nursing practice
and teaching so I just want to look at
from her notes on nursing so another
thing she did was start to write about
this and so
again it's hard to overestimate how
important this is because we know that
medical doctors have been writing case
histories and writing about it since the
time of the ancient Greeks like
hypocrates and gallon but within nursing
really to my in my understanding nothing
was written down and this is partly I
would argue because it wasn't taken as
seriously so uh we see Florence
Nightingale taking it seriously writing
this down for for people to read as part
of curriculum and so this is what she
has to say in notes on nursing surgery
removes the bullet out of the limb which
is an obstruction to cure but nature
heals the wound so definitely situating
which would be very similar
to the way medicine is approached by
hypocrates that ancient Greek tradition
of recognizing the role of the natural
environment around you but also that
your body is part of Nature and that
really you're just facilitating the
natural healing of the body so it is
with medicine the function of an organ
be becomes obstructed medicine so far as
we know assists nature to remove the
obstruction but does nothing more so
there's a kind of fundamental humility
here in her approach that all of the
nursing is is around supporting what uh
the natural uh Curative powers of the
human
body and what nursing has to do in
either case is to put the patient in the
best condition for nature to act upon
him and so we find within the teaching
of Nightingale that she's very um she
talks a great deal about all of these
dimensions of the person that then
contribute to their healing including
their mental Outlook and um as well as
those more practical aspects of nursing
so even though as with all medicine in
places like Canada the technical aspects
have really come to the for in our time
period nursing has kind of stubbornly
maintained this emphasis and I think
it's it is under a lot of strain and I I
I hope we can talk about it in the
discussion boards but definitely n
Andale is clear that all of these
aspects have to be paid attention
to the turning point in Florence
nightingale's career and really a
turning point in history in a sense as
we're going to see is the creman war
which uh breaks out in
1853 and the British are fighting in an
area which is now contested between
Ukraine and Russia and so uh she it is
during the Crimean War she becomes known
as the lady with the lamp which and she
becomes a kind of icon of Nursing and I
would I would argue even to this day
she's kind of the icon of Nursing in in
a lot of people's minds and so uh in the
beginning the Army did not want her
there and so she had to push and
apparently she was referred to as
unfeminine and a nuisance by a number of
the uh military Elite that were
organizing the British forces but she
insisted on going because she had heard
of the conditions for the soldiers there
and so in one of her biographies it says
how Florence nightingale's hygiene
Crusade saved millions and so during
this period as she's dealing with what
she's the kind of the card she's dealt
this becomes a pattern uh going forward
for any form of Nursing and also uh in
in during war wartime uh which is
obviously the worst time to be a doctor
or a nurse
um
so she takes uh a group of nurses with
her she puts together this group of
nurses and some are um secular but also
she calls upon the Irish Sisters of
Mercy so again we see this coming
together as we're going to see in
hospice care of these ideals emerging
out of that pre-existing tradition and
then Florence night Andale is more
bringing in more the scientific
technical aspects of nursing so they
start to come together in the figure of
of Florence Nightingale so she goes to
Crimea and what she finds there is uh as
we now know completely horrifying and
what she finds is that the soldiers are
dying mostly of the conditions around
them not necessarily of their wounds so
they're dying of things like typhoid
they're dying of denter so things that
can be dealt with through through
hygiene and so according to the accounts
she and her nurses the first thing they
did was they went to work scrubbing
every inch of the facilities that they
were working in they established a
laundry and she was also
uh fundraising so again we see that
incredible energy so she's she's also
getting money she's getting donations to
come in to pay for all of this and so
um so we're told that as a result the
mortality rates dropped by probably
around 40% so just unbelievable
unbelievable success in this case and so
clearly she becomes she becomes famous
at this time even the Queen of England
is is paying attention to her and so uh
in the London times she's uh referred to
as a ministering Angel so this idea
of we've talked about this in the
discussion boards that she's she's
occupying a role that Society accepts
for women so it's not completely she's
not seen as completely
uh walking you know moving outside of
what's acceptable for women but without
a doubt she's called a Trailblazer and
so are the nurses that went with her and
so when we say Trailblazer that idea of
opening up a path for others to follow
and so really it's in this at this very
challenging time in the Crimean War
where she walks right into the fire that
it establishes a lot of her thinking
about what nursing is going to look like
and what nursing training is going to
look like going forward
there are many ways to approach the work
of Florence Nightingale because it's
such a vast body of work and I don't
well I kind of do know where she got the
energy she had that Zeal that Victorian
religious Zeal uh that was motivating
her but she was extremely active in a a
wide variety of areas so one one
important one was uh changes made to St
Thomas's hospital so according to their
website the hospital had existed uh from
the 12th century and um in London on the
T River but with uh with the ideas of
Florence Nightingale it gets rebuilt and
um and it starts in
1872 and so she oversees the building
the rebuilding of the premises so that
it reflects her principles of nursing uh
which is referred to on the website as
Pavilion style so seven large separate
buildings connected by walkways she
recognized the importance of design for
improving hygiene and health so so even
in terms of the design of building she's
uh she's involved in that and part of
this is that that hospital will then
become the site of training for nurses
and so she starts developing uh
curriculum for nursing and so one of a
very important person in this history is
uh Lyn McDonald who's done a lot of work
uh collecting her writings and so on
she's um a professor at uh University of
galf and uh I will be attaching this
document she's just done so much work
getting putting this all in one place so
she McDonald has also looked at um night
and Gale's faith and that the influence
that it had on her on her work and so
her argument is that there's a strain of
what of methodism in in Florence night
Andale I don't want to get too far into
this but it's a it's a stream within uh
Ang ISM that's much more activist and
social justice oriented and so this was
uh also part of what was uh was
influencing her and so in terms of
Nursing education uh we find also
that for for Florence Nightingale
despite her religious beliefs for her
nursing is secular it's it's nurses
should be coming from all backgrounds
they should be uh working with people of
all backgrounds so so it was much more
just her com providing her motivation it
wasn't necess like coloring the nursing
itself and so um so we find that uh her
approach to nursing for instance uh that
nurses would be trained regardless of
social class or educational background
or any other aspect of their background
so there we see that very clearly the
idea that uh religious background isn't
important uh so training was to be
fundamentally on the apprenticeship
model handson in the wards with other
nurses so with senior nurses which would
be also typical of uh for a medical
doctor classes given by medical doctors
augmented by training so that idea of
in-class training supplemented by uh
work work on the on the ward so the idea
of a home sister or Mistress of
probationers organizing the training
under the
matron um District nurses had to be
Hospital trained so the so there's the
idea of all the different arms of
nursing so whether there working in in
the community whether they're working in
a hospital that they all have this
standard training and they learn things
like hygiene and so on and so also the
idea of Midwifery she was very
influential in terms of getting that
into into alignment with the standard
the standard curriculum of nursing so I
think you can see very clearly why she's
so important obviously I'm just touching
on it uh but if any of you want to work
on this uh as your final essay paper
you're welcome to do that there's
there's quite a lot of information
available on her unlike with the uh
Catholic nursing orders so I wanted to
end with this image which I found very
touching actually um which is from 2020
the houses of Parliament in England were
lit up on International Nurses Day so
the day obviously was for all nurses uh
but it was on the birthday of Florence
Nightingale so that's her image also
projected onto the houses of Parliament
and so uh it would it would project her
her date of birth her date and then it
would projected this our nation thanks
those who care and so this came
obviously right at the height of the
covid pandemic when health care workers
were leaping into the fry and I'm sure
many of you know cases I I personally
know
cases there was a woman I was working
with at the uh niping Serenity hospice
who had was just about to retire when
covid hit and
basically immediately leapt into the fry
and was organizing all the different
clinics in North Bay to get shots to
people and I know there's um uh he was a
former Dean at nippa Singh who hadn't
been a practicing nurse for many years
Rick vanderly but he went in and started
giving vaccinations so it was really you
could really see this traditional uh
approach of dedication and service we
all saw it um uh doctors too of course
uh during covid and so I think it's I
think it's fantastic that um in England
they
they created this tribute both to
Florence night Andale and to nurses
everywhere
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