History Of Nursing Science
Nursing has existed in some for as long as humans have roamed the earth. The modern era of nursing began with the emergence of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War in the 1850's. The daughter of affluent parents, Nightingale greatly accelerated the development of nursing and is widely acknowledged as the most important person in the history of nursing. Nursing science translates to the profession itself in the form of best practices that have been formulated, debated, reviewed and analyzed so as to verify the validity of nursing theories before they are put into practice.
Nightingale Emerges
As is the case with many nurses and others who dedicate their lives to the care of others, Nightingale was driven largely by her spirituality and religious convictions. Many people perceive there to be an inherent conflict between religion and science but Nightingale did not believe this to be the case. Nightingale began to make her impact during the Crimean War in the 1850's, a conflict between Russia and a list of European countries that included Britain. Immediately upon her arrival, Nightingale instituted a number of changes including a change in the handling of meals and nursing care for injured soldiers. These changes were based on the importance of order and cleanliness. Mortality rates immediately started to drop upon the implementation of these changes (Parker & Smith, 2010).
Two major schools of thought relating to disease in the mid-1800's were "contagionism" and "anti-contagionism." The former referred to diseases being communicable and being spread in areas where many people congregate such as markets. Nightingale was a rabid support of anti-"contagionsim," asserting that filth and dirtiness were the main cause of diseases spreading and that requiring cleanliness...
Another strident view that Ms. Nightingale took was an aversion to marrying. She never clearly stated feminist viewpoints but many people attribute her belief structure to feminist ideology (Parker & Smith, 2010).
Nightingale's creation of modern nursing science started when she constructed a number of "assumptions" about nursing, eleven in total (Parker & Smith, 2010). These eleven assumptions included the idea that nursing and medicine are separate things, nurses should be trained, a nurse should be vigilant and quick to respond, and that the focus should be on the patient at all times (Parker & Smith, 2010). She followed this up with the 13 canons of nursing and the model of nursing and the environment (Parker & Smith, 2010).
Early 20th Century Nursing Theorists
Nursing science advancements of the 20th century started with Ernestine Wiedenbach. Born in 1900, she served as a nurse during World War II during the 1940's and subsequently taught about the development of prescriptive theory from her positions at Yale University. She continued these teachings even after her retirement in 1966. She insisted that nursing should be considered a professional practice discipline and that nursing practice theory was a concept that should be researched and expanded. She also asserted in 1964 that nursing was patient-centered (McKenna, 1998).
Active around the same time was Virginia Henderson. Henderson questioned the idea of nursing being secondary in nature to medicine rather than an integral part of it. Publishing some of her best work in 1955, she insisted that the functions of nurses be clearly defined and what good nursing care truly was (Parker & Smith, 2010).
Lydia Hall, born in…
