Early nursing was mostly a volunteer religious practice. The most famous group known for historical nursing were the Hospitalers.
The Hospitalers were Knights during the crusade era whose duty it was to protect the pilgrims. However, much of nursing was simply done by normal men and women who had no training.
In the late 1700s nursing was considered to be an unsuitable career for proper women. This stemmed from the fact that most hospitals during this era were not sterile.
In fact, they were so bad that the patients tended in them died. The hospitals were so filthy that those who worked in them were generally people who could not find any other work.
Florence Nightingale came from a wealthy aristocratic family. Her mother was less than pleased with her decision to become a nurse instead of a mother, but her father supported her and gave her the equivalent of $50,000/year today to live and pursue her career.
On her father's money, Nightingale lived a comfortable life and was very successful in her career. She traveled all over Europe continuing her education and practicing nursing.
Between the years of 1853 and 1856 Florence Nightingale joined the British Crimean War effort as a nurse. During this time Nightingale became known as the "Lady with the Lamp," because of her habit of treating wounded soldiers throughout the night.
In addition to being a nurse, Florence Nightingale was also known as a writer and statistician. After her nursing experiences she wrote several books on the career.
The most famous of Nightingale's books is Notes on Nursing. This book details key nursing principles and practices that make up much of modern nursing today.
When Nightingale returned to London after the war she established a college called the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses. Appropriately, Notes on Nursing became the primary textbook for the Nightingale School.
This was the first institute supporting professional nurse training. Following Nightingale, nursing as a career grew as the demand for nurses rose with the beginning of the Spanish-American War and World War I.
The number of nursing schools began to increase and the schools that existed raised the number in their enrollment. With the demand, new programs were developed.
After World War I there was a lull in the demand for nurses and many became unemployed. Then, with World War II the demand for nurses rose to an all new level.
Since that time, technology and medical knowledge has become more advanced and complicated requiring a high education in order to nurse. Today, there are several different types of nurses.
The first is a scrub nurse whose main playing field is the operation room. Their job is to organize all of the instruments that the surgeon will use and makes sure that they are clean.
They will also stand nearby during the operation and hand the surgeon the tools he needs. It is important that the scrub nurse anticipates what that surgeon will need so the operation will take as short a time as possible.
The longer the patient is cut open because the surgeon has to wait for the tools to be handed to them, the more blood they are going to loose. If the scrub nurse cannot do their job properly it could have serious consequences.
A practical nurse is one who has gone through extensive training and education. They have earned their license by attending classes for at least one year, practicing in a hospital setting, and taking a certification exam.
Once they have passed the test they will use the initial LPN which stands for Licensed Practical Nurse. They are then certified to practice under a registered nurse.
Registered nurses take a different examination. They are known as the patient's advocate and will work with and care for the patient until they recover.
Nursing had a very humble beginning, but it is a very heroic effort. The practice has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Author Resource:-
Tom Selwick has worked as a traveling nurse for the last 16 years. He has worked in many local clinics and the ER and recommends looking into becoming a travel nurse.
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