2. Nursing History: Why Carry a Lamp?
Unit # 1
Course
Objective :
#1
*Students will develop an
understanding of the
important contributions
to the nursing profession
of others from the past.
Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania
3. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
Course
Objective
#2 Students will be able to
identify 2 historical figures
specific to nursing .
# 3 Students will understand
the Socio/Economic period
.
#4 Students will understand why these
contributions had impact at that time.
5. Nursing History: Why Carry the
Lamp?
Learning Objectives for
this Course
By the end of this
course nursing
Courtesy of the University of
students will be able
Pennsylvania
to:
Not unlike my
first Director of
Nurses!
6. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
1. Identify 2 important figures in nursing history.
2. Understand their contribution to the nursing
profession.
3. Relate the Socio/Economic period.
4. Explain
why these figures had an
important impact on nursing
history.
8. Nursing History: Why Carry a Lamp?
2 noted and valiant women who overcame enormous
prejudice one for her color and one her conviction.
Mary Seacole and Clara Barton
Courtesy of the National Park Service
Courtesy of the Florence Nightingale Museum
11. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
• What was Clara Barton’s contribution to
nursing and to the world?
• 1. Humble as it was she helped nurse
soldiers in the field with little supplies and
little knowledge.
• 2. She helped to identify over 13,000 dead.
• 3. She instituted and established
The American Red Cross.
12. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
Question:
How did Mary Seacole contribute to the
profession of nursing?
1. Her determination provided a
understanding within the British
Military
2. Her book published in 1857 introduced
the idea that all women even women
of color have the knowledge and
understanding to provide nursing care.
14. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
Who first demonstrated the use of a Pie
Chart in order to persuade people the need
for change?
Florence Nightingale drove home the impact of
poor sanitary conditions on mortality rates during
the Crimean War by reconfiguring a pie chart,
varying the length, rather than the width, of the
wedges, so that the graph resembled a cock’s
comb. As the historian Hugh Small notes,
Nightingale may not have invented statistical
graphs, but “she may have been the first to use
them for persuading people of the need for
change.”
15. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania
Could this be an early Simulator
Lab?
16. Nursing History: Why carry a Lamp?
Where could the Simulator Lab Be ?
Maybe Here?
17. References
Clara Barton: Civil War nurse Founder of the American Red
Cross. Retrieved from
http://americancivilwar.com/women/cb.html
Cohen, G. Pie Chart. Retrieved from http:///unc
.ed/
Seacole, M. ( 1857) Wonderful adventures of Mrs Seacole.
London, UK: James Blackwood. Retrieved from
http://www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women
Editor's Notes
You were expected to wear a white nursing cap when you were on duty at one time. They were a kind of status symbol . You got a black stripe when you became a senior and nearer to graduation. Every school then as now did it a little differently but, of course, caps no longer hold the symbolic importance they use to. Actually , they looked nice but were a pain to keep on your head.So our objective is to understand the personal contributions and the sacrifices of nurses from years past.
We are going to discuss 2 very different ladies from long ago. One somehow got lost in the annuals of American nursing but has since become revived and justly so. Her contributions to nursing were vastly out shadowed by her contemporary and our profession’s founder, Florence Nightingale. It was around 1854 and her noted heroics have now been reaffirmed. We are going to review her actions and the effects of the times she lived in. The other lady , instrumental in founding the American Red Cross, is someone we all are familiar with and her contributions too were affected by the events of the times.
As an additional note I would like to mention my first Director of Nurses in 1979 who had the old diploma school background. Nobody really knew how old she was or even if she had a husband. She was always dressed in white, very clean and starched, and proper. The younger nurses thought she didn’t have any other clothes. She walked around with a perpetual glare on her face for everyone except very sick and then you saw a transformation and you caught a glimpse of why she became a nurse. Everybody was afraid of her. If she caught you in dingy whites , scuffed shoes, or hair touching your collar ,heaven help you! I called her “Boss” one day way back then when the colloquial was frown upon by the profession ( I know it’s a popular expression now but not in those days). My God, she smiled and I think because I was a little ditzy ( knowing I seemed to say the wrong things at the wrong time ) but a hard worker, she eventually ended up with a small, very small, soft spot in that unrevealing heart of hers…..for me. Now, we are going to learn a little about the influence of nurses, not unlike her, from the past, and by the end of this course you will have a better understanding of their immense struggle .
We all know about the contributions of Florence Nightingale and much about Clara Barton. However, I am going to review Barton’s actions and the reason they became effective in a man’s world. Current events and socioeconomic times dictated to some extent how and why these women were able to have a lasting place in nursing and in world history.
I wonder what the Sim lab would have looked like in the late nineteenth century?
