Nightingale as QI Expert and Hospital Designer

By Sue Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN (this is the 4th in a series of posts by Hassmiller retracing Florence Nightingale’s influential and innovative career) 

Seeing the famous St. Thomas’ Hospital today, I thought Florence Nightingale would roll over in her grave with disgust! What were they thinking, I asked the tour guide? Well, she said, it was the ‘60s. No excuse, I barked back! Prince Charles doesn’t like it either, if that makes you feel any better, she responded.

Applying best practices. The most visually prominent buildings in the hospital now consist of a couple of plain, brown, nondescript, blocklike structures—not anything like Nightingale, once the most famous hospital designer in the world, would have had it. Or, rather, did have it. Her friend, Queen Victoria, laid the first stone and Florence Nightingale contributed to the design and relocation of the St. Thomas’ Hospital of the mid-1800s, with the intention of applying best practices she had brought back from the Crimean War as well as her own research and statistics. 

Nightingale was much sought after as a master designer of hospitals; architects, physicians, and royalty from around the world asked her advice. And here was supposed to be her masterpiece . . . but her version of St. Thomas’ is just about gone.

Physical, spiritual, mental health needs. Nightingale envisioned the relocated and rebuilt St. Thomas’ as […]

2016-11-21T13:16:45-05:00July 13th, 2010|nursing history, nursing perspective|8 Comments
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A Weekend With Florence In London

Editor’s note: The two entries below, written on Saturday and Sunday in London, are the latest in a series of posts by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Senior Adviser for Nursing, Susan Hassmiller, who’s spending her summer vacation retracing the footsteps of Florence Nightingale and reflecting on the implications of Nightingale’s work for nurses today.

Saturday: Westminster Abbey (London)

I arrived in London for my vacation today. They tell me it is uncharacteristically hot (nearly 90 degrees), so that gave me full license to have ice cream . . . not once, but twice! And although the “official” Florence Nightingale tour hasn’t started, I didn’t waste time getting a head start on my quest to better understand the contributions of Ms. Nightingale. […]

2017-04-29T17:29:33-04:00July 12th, 2010|nursing history, nursing research|5 Comments
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The Nightingale Immersion Experience

Susan Hassmiller, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Senior Advisor for Nursing, is traveling through Europe on a tour developed in honor of the centennial of Florence Nightingale’s death. This is the second of two preliminary posts she gave us last week before taking to the skies; click here for the first. Starting later today (so check back this afternoon!) with a first post from London, Hassmiller will report on her trip, what she’s learning, and why Florence Nightingale is as relevant as ever to nurses’ work today. 


I’m still in immersion mode, learning all I can about Florence Nightingale—the “Lady with the Lamp” (a name Wikipedia succinctly explains)—as I get ready for my trip. What have I learned so far? Well, I’m blown away. […]

2016-11-21T13:16:48-05:00July 12th, 2010|nursing history|1 Comment
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Following in Florence Nightingale’s Footsteps – Literally!

On the Road with Sue Hassmiller as she traces the work of the legendary Florence Nightingale . . .

On her upcoming summer vacation, Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Senior Advisor for Nursing, will be pursuing a dream to learn more about the life and work of the legendary Florence Nightingale. She’ll be traveling through Europe on a special tour developed in honor of the centennial of Nightingale’s death. In this and upcoming blog posts, Hassmiller reports on her trip, what she learns, and what it means to nurses’ work today. (Addendum: click here for the full series of posts.)

Eighteen years old and “hot to trot.” That’s what I thought I was. Having just been admitted into nursing school, I was set to change the world…one patient at a time. They tried to teach me about Florence Nightingale, but she was someone from the past…not likely to help me learn to start IVs, put in catheters, or run ventilators. If there were iPods back then, I would have used mine to avoid lessons about how Florence Nightingale changed the face of nursing forever. What an exaggeration, I thought! There was nothing to be learned from her…so I tuned out every last bit of it.  […]

2016-11-21T13:16:49-05:00July 9th, 2010|nursing history|23 Comments
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Reflections on the Freedom to Harm Yourself

By Marcy Phipps, RN

(Identifying details of the patient and clinician mentioned in this post have been changed to protect their anonymity.)

Last week I took care of a woman who’d shot herself in the abdomen. This was the third suicide attempt she’d survived. She was physically compromised, to say the least, and was looking at a long recovery. Her despondence was palpable. 

A clinical psychologist came to evaluate her and determined that she was experiencing major depression with suicidal ideations. 

Usually, such patients are “Baker Acted.” In accordance with the Florida Mental Health Act, commonly referred to as the Baker Act, individuals who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or to others are held involuntarily and transferred to a treatment facility.

But because this patient stated to the psychologist that she was not only willing to seek mental health treatment, but also planned on checking herself into a facility near her home, she didn’t qualify to be involuntarily hospitalized. She was free to leave at any time.

As the psychologist explained to me, the first criterion of the Baker Act only considers whether or not the person in question is refusing treatment. According to Florida Statute 394.463, as long as said person does not refuse to be examined, the Baker Act does not apply.          

Although the psychologist assured […]

2016-11-21T13:16:51-05:00July 8th, 2010|Ethics, nursing perspective, Patients|3 Comments
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