Just what do we know about Florence Nightingale and what traits do these people have or need to have to be successful in Nursing? By looking at Florence’s life and devotion to helping others, it is possible to understand what it takes to succeed in this occupation, enough so to make it a career.
The early years
Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 to a rich, upper-class British family, and was named for the city of her birth. Though discouraged by her parents, in 1837, Florence Nightingale was struck by what she took to be a divine Christian calling. She wrote, “God spoke to me, and called me to his service”, and decided to go into the nursing field. It signified her passion to pursue what was a career, mainly left to the poor, under-class women at the time, and rebel against the expected role of wife and mother that was what her family desired.
In 1844, after a pauper’s death, Florence became a leading advocate for improved conditions in infirmaries and led to her active role in reform of the “Poor Laws”, which extended further than medical conditions.
Pioneer in Nursing
In 1854, Florence and a troop of 38 volunteer nurses that she had trained went to Turkey, where the British army camp was based. They found wounded soldiers, overworked medical staff, and medicine in short supply and mass infection with no equipment to process food for the patients. She and the volunteers started cleaning the hospital, in hopes that more sanitary conditions would lower the death rates from infections. It took several months, and requests to the British government for assistance, to finally lower the mortality rate. The improved, sanitary conditions that saved those lives are responsible for improved conditions in the nursing field and hospitals of today.
“Lady with the Lamp”
It was during this time that Florence also was given the nickname, The “Lady with the Lamp”:
During the Crimean Campaign of British War History, in the mid 1800’s, it was once written in The Times, “She is a ‘ministering angel’ without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow’s face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds.”
The phrase was further elaborated on in 1857, when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem, “Santa Filomena”, in which he wrote:
Lo! In that hour of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom
And flit from room to room
Because of Florence Nightingale’s famous war efforts, the nickname stuck. Her determination to assist the wounded soldiers, after hearing of the horrific war conditions, made her want to come to the assistance and help along the front lines, even though it endangered her own well-being. While she was still in Turkey, in 1855, a public meeting to give recognition to her work was held, and the establishment of the Nightingale Fund for the training of Nurses was set up and donations starting pouring in.
An author and home nursing trainer
She wrote papers, which later became books on the hospital sanitation techniques and nursing skills. The two most famous books she wrote were, Notes on Hospitals and Notes on Nursing, which became textbooks in their day. In 1860, the first official nurse training course was started, the Nightingale School for Nurses, which focused on training nurses to work with the poor and to teach. This was intended to help people in their homes, to improve the conditions for health and home care. This is still a growing nursing field, as more people prefer to stay in their homes for post care, or are forced to due to insurance restrictions on hospital stays.
As a woman, she could not be appointed to the Royal Commission, but she wrote the Commission’s 1000-plus-page report, which included statistical reports and she was instrumental in implementing the changes to overhaul the military care procedures.
In the 1870’s, Florence Nightingale mentored Linda Richards, America’s “first trained nurse”, who later went on to establish nurse training courses and schools across the US with the knowledge she obtained from Florence. Linda Richards herself became a nursing pioneer in the United States and Japan.
Her legacy lives on
By 1896, she was bedridden with what would be classified as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and her birthday is now celebrated as International CFS Awareness Day. Even during her bedridden years, she continued to do pioneering work in the hospital-planning field.
Florence Nightingale died in 1910 in her sleep. Her contributions to the women’s movement and the nursing field continued after her death. Hospitals, museums, statues and documentaries still bear her name and are dedicated in her honor for her contributions to the nursing profession, and for making it exist as it does today.
