Identifying a specific time in which nursing came to be is impossible. How exactly would nursing be classified before it was a profession.
A mother or father taking care of a sick child may be the earliest form of nursing. It is presumed that individuals have taken care of the physical health of loved ones since before societies had recording abilities.
Nursing strangers came about when early Christian nuns started caring for the injured or sick without families. Having only provided spiritual help to the men and women of the time, the nurses were not well equipped to provide for the physical well being of the people.
Nursing soon strayed from a religious responsibility and as men and women began to specialize in being doctors, the role of a nurse inevitably followed. The doctors assistants were the first form of nurses.
Wars brought about the need for a large number of health professionals. Because doctors were limited, nurses were trained and were able to help wounded soldiers.
The training that nurses underwent was very informal and bestowed little, if any, information to the nurse that would help them in real life situations. The lack of knowledge resulted in an era of nursing based on trial and error experience.
This method of trial and error can be useful in many careers but many times this process led to the unnecessary death of patients. This learning method also resulted in having a group of nurses with scattered skill sets based on their experiences.
Nursing in America has come about due to the influence of many very impressive people. It took the efforts of a wide variety of people for nursing to become an accepted academic pursuit and career.
During the Civil War Clara Barton showed amazing amounts of courage and drive, and helped America to understand the importance of nursing. Being stationed as a patent clerk, Clara Barton decided that she needed to find and organize a way of getting vital medical supplies to the troops.
Feeling that she was still not able to do enough, Barton headed into the battlefield. She provided health care to injured soldiers and saved the lives of men that would have otherwise passed away.
Clara Barton showed those around her that nursing needed to be taken seriously and that nurses were most effective when they were passionate about improving the lives of their patients. In 1901 the Army Nurse Corps was authorized by Congress.
The Army Nurse Corps was a group that trained women in various life-saving techniques and taught about how to help the men heal from their battle wounds. Learning how to stop the spread of disease was a very important part of the nurses training, and because this issue was so prevalent in the United States the Army Nurse Corps started to develop a very positive reputation.
Annie Walburton became the first woman president of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses. This organization concentrated on training nurses not only for battle, but also for everyday life.
Walburton was a crucial part of the developing of a standardized, structured and consistent way to train nurses. After serving as the president of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses, Walburton help the presidential position in the International Council of Nurses and the American Nurses Association.
Finally, Walburton became an assistant professor at Columbia University. Columbia University's school of nursing was established in 1892.
Columbia University made large nursing leaps and strides in the early 20th century. Taking part in groundbreaking research of the time Columbia worked to understand the best methods for nursing.
Yale Nursing School was another college that was very formative in the development of nursing. Although Yale College did not admit women in the early 20th century, the Yale Nursing School did. Women were required to have completed the same academic prerequisites as their male counterparts applying to the Yale College.
The University of Michigan also took part in the development of nursing as a career. Developing a five year program that resulted in a Bachelor of Letters degree as well as a nursing diploma, Michigan prepared nurses to save the lives of the people they were going to be treating.
When men and women that wanted to pursue nursing were finally able to have a professional scholarly degree, nursing began the transition to a professional career. Today, nurses are well respected and utilized effectively in the world of medicine.
Author Resource:-
Jack R. Landry has worked as a nurse practitioner for the last 16 years. He is an advocate for higher education and graduated from a Utah nursing school.
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