Vered’s Blog

I had to go today to the hospital for a routine checkup. As I was sitting there waiting, I was watching the nurses and wondered how would the world function without the support and help of this profession.

We tend to take things for granted. We don’t realize that only 150 years ago profession such as nursing did not exist. It’s true the medical world was there since beginning of time however the part of kindness, warmth, support and assurance that the nursing profession brings in is a new development.

The woman that turned nursing into an important and valuable profession was Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, and was the daughter of a well-to-do family in England. They wanted her to become a socialite and to learn to give big parties and serve tea.

Florence Nightingale, however, had other plans. Nightingale felt that God was calling her to do some work but wasn’t sure what that work should be. She began to develop an interest in nursing, but her parents regarded it to be a profession inappropriate to a woman of her class and background, and would not allow her to train as a nurse. They expected her to make a good marriage and live a conventional upper class woman’s life.

However, Florence Nightingale was not discouraged by the lack of support of her family and wasn’t willing to give up on her life’s mission.
In those days, nursing was a career with a poor reputation, filled mostly by poorer women, “hangers-on” who followed the armies, and nurses were equally likely to function as cooks.

In 1845 Florence Nightingale announced her decision to enter nursing, evoking intense anger and distress from her family, particularly her mother. Her parents didn’t want her working in those “dirty” hospitals, but she was determined. They did many things to try to change her mind. Her sister pretended to have fainting spells. Her mother accused her of being immoral. She finally reached an agreement with her father. If he would let her go to Kaiserwerth hospital in Germany to study, she wouldn’t tell anyone about her plans. This way, her family wouldn’t have to be “embarrassed” by her actions.

Florence Nightingale became an excellent student, and after her graduation, she returned to London and got a job running a hospital. In 1854 the Crimean War began and soon reports in the newspapers were describing the desperate lack of proper medical facilities for wounded British soldiers at the front. Sidney Herbert, the war minister, already knew Nightingale, and asked her to oversee a team of nurses in the military hospitals in Turkey. In November 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived in Scutari in Turkey. With her nurses, she greatly improved the conditions and substantially reduced the mortality rate

Florence Nightingale set a shining example for nurses everywhere of compassion, commitment to patient care, and diligent and thoughtful hospital administration. In many ways she was extremely ‘modern’ in her attitude to health management - especially in her attitude to outcomes and statistical measurement.

In 1860 she established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Once the nurses were trained, they were sent to hospitals all over Britain, where they introduced the ideas they had learnt, and established nursing training on the Nightingale model.

Florence Nightingale’s theories, published in ‘Notes on Nursing’ (1860), were hugely influential and her concerns for sanitation, military health and hospital planning established practices which are still in existence today. In her book (Notes on Nursing) Florence Nightingale lays down the principles of nursing: careful observation and sensitivity to the patient’s needs. Notes on Nursing has been translated into eleven foreign languages and is still in print today.

Florence Nightingale is a great role model of the Feminine Leadership principles. Inspired by what she understood to be a divine calling, Nightingale made a commitment to nursing. The nursing profession as defined by Florence Nightingale embodies qualities such as: care, nurturing, sensitivity and introspection, which all of them are qualities of the female energy.

To top it all this remarkable woman was brave enough to do this in a time where she was expected to be become mostly a wife and a mother and she was willing to go against those expectations and follow her heart in doing the work that she loved. Better put – creating the work that she loved.