For the past 9 years, I have served on the board of directors of the Western Conservancy of Nursing History (http://www.apu.edu/nursingconservancy/), whose mission is to preserve the history of nursing in the 10 western states. We are working in conjunction with Sigma Theta Tau, and Azusa Pacific University in Azusa California and have amassed an amazing collection of historical nursing artifacts including an authenticated letter written by Florence Nightingale. One day we will have a museum of nursing history and a place for nursing students to research the rich heritage of our profession. Because I sit on the board, I am continually exposed to that rich heritage. I am not sure that in our everyday work we often stop to think about those that came before us and what incredible women (and a few incredible men) they were. Maureen Kennedy, in her editorial on Building on Nursing's Legacy Why New Nurses Need to Know What Our Past Holds, said it well, "[horizontal ellipsis]we need to convey to the next generation of nurses that they aren't simply learning job skills-they're joining a profession with a legacy of service and social commitment. We need to imbue in them a sense of personal responsibility and a feeling for the limitless potential of nursing" (Kennedy, 2014, p. 7). I want to share just a glimpse of some of these remarkable people to remind you of how incredible nurses are and have been in the past, and encourage you to share these stories with the nurses for whom you have professional development responsibilities.
The most obvious influential nurse, of course, was Florence Nightingale. She defied her wealthy British family to study nursing, which was unheard of in 1837. She heeded the call to the Crimean War where she turned around the facilities and the care with improved hygiene in the camps and hospitals and dramatically reduced the mortality rate. She was the first nurse researcher displaying data in a pie chart, which is still used today. It has been said that she was, at that time, the most knowledgeable person on health statistics in all Europe. Among other accomplishments, she started a nursing school and she was a bestselling author. There are over 300 biographies of her life and 16 volumes of her own writing. We owe her our clean hospitals, infection control, nursing schools, data-driven research, and our profession. She was truly an amazing woman. Reading her best seller Notes on Nursing is a must for every nurse in understanding the roots of our profession.
Isabel Hampton Robb was the first president of the American Nurses Association, which she originally formed as the Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada. Prior to that, she also founded the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses in 1893. This organization became the National League of Nursing Education in 1912. In addition, she was one of the original members of a group who founded the American Journal of Nursing. She has been responsible for initiating numerous improvements in nursing education. From Isabel Hampton Robb, we learn the importance of dedication to nursing education.
Mary Breckinridge, like Florence Nightingale, was born into an aristocratic family. However, she was born in the southern United States, and her family had close ties to government officials. She was a daughter of Arkansas Congressman Clifton R. Breckinridge and a granddaughter of Vice President John C. Breckinridge. She was educated by private tutors in Washington, DC, and in St. Petersburg, Russia. As there were no midwifery schools in the United States, she trained in England and then returned to the United States. She served as a midwife, founded the Frontier Nursing Service, and started family care centers in the Appalachian Mountains. She had a major impact on the people in that region and beyond. From Mary Breckinridge, we learn social responsibility to families in underserved areas.
Clara Barton was an untrained war time pioneer nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse, a teacher, a patent clerk, and a humanitarian. Born in 1821, she worked at a time when very few women worked outside the home. She never married because of the restrictions that would have placed on her work. She built her career on helping others. During the end of the American Civil War, Barton worked at a hospital helping the people at the Andersonville prison camp where 13,000 people died. During the Civil War, there was no official system in place to document missing or dead soldiers. At the end of the war, she, along with Dorence Atwater, filled that void. Barton set up the Missing Soldier's Office in Washington in 1865, hiring numerous clerks, including Dorence Atwater, to respond to the more than 60,000 letters that she received. In 1867, the office was closed, but by then Barton and the staff had identified more than 20,000 missing soldiers who included many of those 13,000 who had died in the Andersonville Prison. Clara Barton was an amazing woman and a tenacious pioneer who did not stop with the development of the American Red Cross. She was also an advocate for the women's rights, working closely with Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone. She received numerous awards, including the International Red Cross Medal, the Cross of Imperial Russia, and the Iron Cross. From Clara Barton, we learn the impact that the work of one dedicated person can have on many.
Jane Delano, born in 1862, was the founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service. Descended from one of the first settlers in America, she was also related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She studied nursing at Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing in New York. In her work for the Red Cross, she traveled to France to represent the Red Cross at the preliminary conference of Red Cross workers and health experts of the world held in Cannes France. She died there and was interred in a cemetery in the Loire Valley. From Jane Delano, we learn the importance of international work in nursing.
Mary Ezra Mahoney was the first black woman to study and work professionally as a nurse. She was trained in the United States and graduated in 1879. In 1908, she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, which merged with the American Nurses Association in 1951. She is commemorated by the biennial Mary Mahoney Award of the American Nurses Association for significant contributions in advancing equal opportunities in nursing for members of minority groups. From Mary Mahoney, we learn the importance of inclusion.
Florence Guinness Blake had a major impact on the education of nurses. She supported the idea that a good nursing education was essential to good nursing practice. In 1954, she authored The Child, His Parents, and the Nurse, which focused on understanding the relationship between parents and children from birth until adolescence. She felt that the knowledge gained about that relationship and involving the parents in the medical care of their children would help pediatric nurses treat young patients in a more effective manner. That is still as true today as the day it was written. From Florence Blake, we learn the impact that educating nurses has not only on patients but also on their families.
Lillian Wald was one of the most respected and influential social reformers of the 20th century. Born in 1867 into a life of privilege, she came to Manhattan to attend the New York Hospital School of Nursing. Because of her experience witnessing the hardship and poverty of the immigrants on the Lower East Side, she founded the Henry Street Settlement. She moved to the area and worked among the poor, offering health care to the residents in their homes based on what they could pay. The settlement also provided social services and education. She was an advocate for children, labor, immigrant civil rights, and women's rights, instituting a number of national associations for these groups. She championed a myriad of local causes. From Lillian Wald, we learn the importance of social responsibility.
Margaret Sangar was a nurse, a sex educator, and a birth control activist who popularized the term birth control and opened the first birth control clinic in the United States. She started organizations that eventually became Planned Parenthood. She worked toward legalizing contraception and has been frequently criticized by opponents of birth control. She stood up for what she believed was important, and greatly influenced reproductive health in the United States.
Dorothea Dix was another American activist, although, in this case, she was fighting on behalf of the indigent insane, creating the first American mental asylums. She also served as a Superintendent of Army Nurses during the Civil War. From Margaret Sangar and Dorothea Dix, we learn the importance of advocacy for underserved populations.
Furthermore, there were a multitude of nurse inventors that you have probably never heard about. Sister Jean Ward in Essex, England, discovered neonatal phototherapy, the treatment for newborns with jaundice. Adda Allen invented a baby bottle with a disposable collapsible liner to make feeding infants easier. Elsie Sorenson, a Danish nurse, invented the ostomy bag to help her sister after undergoing surgery for colon cancer. Anita Door created the crash cart, which she stocked according to order of use so that everything needed would be ready for an emergency. A. Lauder Sutherland commissioned and helped to create the Mrs. Chase doll in 1911 to be used for training nursing students. This is the same doll that I trained on and used as a nurse educator. Red Cross nurses on the battlefield in WWI developed the disposable sanitary napkin. Can you imagine what it was like for the nurses during the war without sanitary napkins? In the 1960s, during her time in the Peace Corps, Ann Moore developed the Snugli based on what she observed in Africa, as the mothers carried their babies in fabric slings. Bessie Blount, both a nurse and a physical therapist, developed an electronic device in the early 1950s that allowed amputees to eat on their own. She also developed a disposable hospital basin. And even as recently as today, Ginny Porowski invented the GoGown, a disposable isolation gown that allows the removal and disposal of gloves and gown without contamination. It is now being produced and is expected to be available in the United States this year (Stokowski, 2014). From these nurse inventors, we learn the need for creativity to develop items that will make our jobs easier and patient care more effective.
What else do we learn from these amazing nurses? We have a very rich professional heritage. Our history is full of women who gave up privilege and wealth to serve others and of women of modest means dedicated to advocating for humanity. They were pioneers, inventers, politicians, humanitarians, researchers, scientists, teachers, innovators, social activists, advocates, care givers, and providers who followed Florence Nightingale's principle, "Let us never consider ourselves finished nurses[horizontal ellipsis]we must be learning all of our lives." (Swihart, 2009, p. 1).
The roles of the Nursing Professional Development specialist include being a change agent, influencing others for positive change, and being a program innovator yourself. Nursing is a dynamic profession influenced by those who have gone before and those yet to make similar contributions. You can add to those contributions by developing new, more effective, and innovative ways to teach our staff.
As an Nursing Professional Development specialist, you also have the opportunity of sharing with nursing students and new graduates today our rich professional heritage and encouraging them to conduct historical research and learn all they can from the lives and nursing practice of these amazing women. The history of your facility and the history of nursing can be incorporated into orientation. Nursing history can be woven into a variety of presentations to the staff, such as professionalism, critical thinking, advocacy, and social responsibility. You can encourage reading about nursing history through having books available that might spark interest, such as Florence Nightingale's Notes on Nursing and We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese by Elizabeth M. Norman. Creating a poster display of the contributions of nurses to health care over the years can also create interest. Even more important is to encourage new nurses to share innovative ideas with your leaders and encourage participation in local and national nursing organizations to influence change in the profession. Our nurses need to know that they are and can be pioneers, innovators, inventers, advocates, and activists just as those who came before. And we need these nurses to possess and share these qualities more than ever in the rapidly changing scene in health care. I have had the privilege of reading a beautiful book-The American Nurse by Carolyn Jones-and seeing portions of her documentary on nurses. The nurses interviewed certainly displayed many of the characteristics of the nurses who have gone before. They and our forbearers saw what needed to be done, and they did it. How can we do any less?
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