Acknowledging Nightingale’s Pervasive Influence on Medicine as We Know It

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Florence Nightingale in Crimean War, from Wikipedia Commons Florence Nightingale in Crimean War, from Wikipedia Commons

There’s a very good article about Florence Nightingale in the New York Times right now (“Florence Nightingale’s Wisdom”)—and it’s by a physician.

The author, Victoria Sweet, writes that Nightingale was the last person she wanted to know about or identify with when she was in medical school. Then she gradually began to realize Nightingale’s extraordinary influence on modern medicine as it’s now practiced. As Sweet point out,

So much of what she fought for we take for granted today — our beautiful hospitals, the honored nursing profession, data-driven research.

It’s a good piece, and though you may already know some of what it covers, it’s well worth reading. For those who want to learn more about Nightingale, let me point out a series of short posts we ran back in the summer of 2010 on this blog. In Florence’s Footsteps: Notes from a Journey, written by Susan Hassmiller, senior advisor for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, detailed the stages of a trip she took that summer as she retraced Nightingale’s steps through England and all the way to the Crimea, all the while contemplating her legacy.

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2016-11-21T13:05:17-05:00March 4th, 2014|career, nursing history, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Appreciating War-Time Nurses the World Over

Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN, an occasional contributor to this blog, works as a clinical liaison support manager of infusion, and is currently based in Brisbane, Australia.

Vivian Bullwinkel / Wikipedia

“Chins up, girls. I’m proud of you and I love you all.”

According to a survivor’s account, these words were spoken by an Australian nurse, Irene Drummond, on Radji Beach, February 16, 1942. This crescent-shaped stretch of white sand is in the Banka Strait near Banka Island, Indonesia. Ms. Drummond and 21 fellow Australian nurses (plus one civilian) walked into the warm sea holding hands, creating a human chain. As their feet touched the surf they were riddled with bullets from Japanese machine guns set up on the beach behind them.

The Banka Strait was an escape route from Singapore and the larger region just before and during the Japanese occupation of Singapore during World War II. The Aussie nurses, some of the very last military personnel to be evacuated from Singapore before the occupation, had snuck away under at night aboard the Vyner Brook in February 1942. They were among approximately 200 passengers attempting to escape to safer ground, but Japanese pilots bombed and sunk the ship. Civilians, military personnel, and nurses died during the attack on the Vyner Brooke, and many of the same escaped into lifeboats. Some of the survivors made it to the shore and ultimately ended up on Radji Beach.

As an American nurse living and working in Australia […]

2016-11-21T13:08:54-05:00November 14th, 2012|Nursing, nursing history|9 Comments
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If You Like Nursing History…

Pediatric NP, circa 1965

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

If you enjoy reading about nursing in the days of yore like I do, then there are a few resources I want to point out to you.

The first is Nursing History & Health Care, a Web site of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. The site was funded through several government and foundation grants and all the information is freely accessible, so this is a valuable resource. (In the interest of transparency: some years ago, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, AJN’s publisher, donated many of AJN’s historical holdings to this institution.)

Last month, we published “Key Ideas in Nursing’s First Century,” by Ellen Davison Baer, professor emerita at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, and cofounder and former associate director of the university’s Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. It’s a concise review of the early days of American nursing’s development and organization. You can also listen to the author and me discussing the article and nursing history in general in a podcast.

And I would be remiss not to mention AJN’s own archives, which go back to the very first issue in October 1900. Access to these archives does require a subscription, but if you ask me (and I freely admit I’m biased), it’s worth it to have access to the classic articles that have shaped the profession. As an example, […]

2016-11-21T13:09:54-05:00June 14th, 2012|nursing history|3 Comments
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National Women’s History Month–What’s Nursing Got to Do With It?

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP-C, AJN clinical managing editor

Back in the late 60s, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, one particular piece of advice kept popping up: “Become a nurse. That way, if anything happens to your husband, you’ll be able to get a job and support your family.”

This month we celebrate National Women’s History Month. The theme is Women’s Education–Women’s Empowerment. I think back to that advice and how it captures the journeys of both nursing and women over the last 45 years.

That one piece of advice reflected so many beliefs of the time. The husband (and there should be a husband for any self-respecting woman) is the breadwinner. A woman doesn’t really want to work and shouldn’t work; her role is to take care of husband and home. She doesn’t need the fulfillment of a career—only the ability to pay the bills if she suddenly finds herself alone.

Nursing was the safety net job. Not something to pursue for its own sake—for the intellectual, emotional, and financial rewards it could offer. Women who did pursue it found themselves earning their own paycheck—but still subjugated, the handmaiden to the physician.

Thankfully, that has changed. Women pursue all kinds of careers and are surpassing men in numbers […]

2016-11-21T13:10:32-05:00March 7th, 2012|nursing history|1 Comment
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Parting Thoughts: 10 Lessons Learned from Florence Nightingale’s Life

The final post in a series by Susan Hassmiller, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Senior Adviser for Nursing, sent to us as dispatches from her summer vacation spent retracing Florence Nightingale’s influential career. The full series can be found by clicking here.  

My husband has called this trip a “game changer” for me, and indeed it has been.  I see things differently now, including our health care system . . . and the critical contributions that nurses are making, and need to continue making, to improve care for patients. Of course, I always knew this, but somehow this ups the ante for me—and I will use my new education to up the ante for nurses. I have learned so much, but let me share these 10 lessons I gleaned from Ms. Nightingale.


1. Never, ever stop learning.

A broad education in the arts and sciences helps with critical thinking and making important connections that lead to action. I saw how Florence used her knowledge of math, statistics, sanitation, religion, and architecture to put a holistic plan together to improve the systems that care for patients.

2. Ground yourself and your work in facts and evidence.

Make your case indisputable.  Everyone should do this . . . not just those who call themselves “researchers.”

3. Muster the courage to follow your convictions.

Step beyond what you think you can do.

4. Treat every person holistically.

Every person […]

2019-03-28T08:50:34-04:00July 22nd, 2010|nursing history|10 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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