Florence Nightengale - who is she?

[abrenrn]

Just curious. Since Florence Nightengale is the "Mother of Modern Nursing" or something like that, what do nurses know about her or think about her? Any comments would be appreciated.

[mark_LD_RN]

Originally posted by florry

Hello!

Maybe she loved her profession more than men!

But still loved men..Maybe it was a coping mechanism related to the home or the parents she had...They expected though that she should marry a man. I think she married her nursing.....

the point is she did not like men in nursing. just her statements like women only have the nurturing nurse instinct. is enough to invalidate her mularchy. may be she was a pioneer in her day. but she is NOT the mother of modern nursing.

i feel it is fine to learn about her to see where nursing was and how we changed. but i do not believe she did so much good for nursing.

[florry]

Where have you read that she didn't like men in nursing?

Pastor Fliedner with his wife had their nursing home for poor children in Kaiserswert in Germany, where FN learned her nursing! Do you meen he was not doing nursing, maybe because he was a pastor....? What is nursing?- Is it one simple definition of nursing..?

I agree that nowaday nursing is notalike victorian nursing (thank God for that), but maybe, and I say maybe we can learn something from the past? I think she liked men in nursing, yes, but agree that she had som spec. ideas about who should turn into nursing and spec. The Nightingale School of nursing...

I would more than ever get that source, that she didn't like men in nursing! I don't think so, you see. Personally; thank God that we have men in nursing!!!!!!

Hope I am not teasing or offending you, but the last sentence; I really mean it!

Best from Florry

[florry]

I forgot someting: she didn't like the surgion/doctors (an allmost all of them where male..except Mrs. Mary Seecole, a foreign doctor doing a lot for that time medicine.

All the doctors in the military were men, and they didn't like her interference, espec. in the beginning of the war against Russia.

After a while they saw the statistics about surviving...and all her organization in nursing, and that worked!

(Sorry, but I love discussion her, even that I dont agree with her theory allways....)

[abrenrn]

I think asking nurses to look at their history is like asking them to look at their professions.

YES - she said wrong things - no man is as good as a woman TRAINED in nursing.

She emphasized nursing as a SKILL. It needed to researched, studied, and evaluated.

She never said all women naturally nurse - women end up doing most of the "amateur nursing" they should have some instruction - that's what Notes on Nursing was about. This was not the same as the training and education she insisted on for professional nursing.

Why, when looking at FN, any nursing, only bad is remembered by most? Only the WRONG things she said - never the right!!

What's the point.

I think I'm out of nursing now. Thanks for helping me make this decision.

Maybe Home Depot is hiring. Sure beats being a nurse with a BS, MS, very smart, very accoutanble - BUT only supposed to be smart when employer asks, never let anyone think I'm smart - god forbid, may take something away from MDs. Only account to employers, never to patients or my license.

Thanks again for reminding me.