MARKETING VS. CSR Henderson Nursing Philosophy

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Virginia Henderson

Classification Focus

Historical Period

She graduated from her first nursing program in 1921 and her career was at its apex in the 1970's as she was one of the more prominent authors of nursing textbooks through the 1970's (and before that dating back to the late 1950's). She was a research associated at Yale until she died in 1996. She died that same year at the age of 1998. Basically, her career was active in some form for nearly seven decades but it was highest in the middle part from the 1950's to 1970's.

Educational background

Virginia Henderson started her medicine career after she graduated from the United States Army School of Nursing in about 1921. She later received her bachelor's degree in 1931 and her master's degree. Her Bachelor of Science as well as her master's from Teachers College at Columbia University.

Experiential background

Ms. Henderson worked first, starting in 1921, at the Henry Street Settlement in the Manhattan borough of New York City. She worked for the Visiting Nurse Association from 1921 to 1923. She worked as a full-time nursing instructor at Norfolk Presbyterian Hospital from the mid-1920's to the late 1920's. About five years later, she started teaching at the college she graduated from, that being Teachers College at Columbia University, from roughly 1934 to 1948. In 1953, she was named as a research associated...

She did this on a regular full-time basis through the early 1970's at which time she switched to emeritus status and this remained the case until her death in 1996. Concurrent to the time at Yale, she authored a number of nursing textbooks and her texts were widely used from the 1950's until the late 1970's. The main book people point to when speaking of her is Textbook of Principles and Practices of Nursing. That book was originally written by Bertha Harmer in 1939 but she was the author and updated of the fifth and sixth editions.
Most Influenced by:

Mostly influenced by her own experiences and the people she worked with and taught at Columbia University as well as her parents and other family, which was a long line of educators and teachers. She derived her philosophy from that same foundation.

Philosophical Foundations

Henderson's philosophy is summarized quite succinctly in the two textbook editions she wrote. The book had two primary foci, those being individual and global. She asserted that healthcare will have to be reformed and improved by nurses who teach patients how to take care of themselves and in what ways. An example of this in action was cutting out as much jargon and confusing verbiage so as to avoid confusing patients with terms they did not understand. This means that terms, best practices and so forth are stated and covered in straight English. This makes it much easier to help patients help themselves and thus lead to less need for medical care as one lives…