On Florence Nightingale’s 201st birthday, coming as it does each year at the end of Nurses Week—and this year after a year of unprecedented challenges for nurses around the globe—there’s no better time to revisit her career.

If she were here today, there’s no doubt she would have much to say and many insights. She helped envision a nursing that encompassed the compassion and professionalism of a skilled bedside nursing that was grounded in ethical principles, scientific and statistical evidence, and a spirit of inquiry.

In 2011, Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Senior Adviser for Nursing, spent her summer vacation traveling through Europe pursuing a dream to learn more about the life and work of Florence Nightingale. In her dispatches from the road, posted one by one and collected here, Hassmiller reported on her trip, what she learned, and what it means to nurses’ work today.

Ten lessons learned from her life.

The culminating post in the series may be a good place to start, however, and to reread and contemplate as we face old challenges in ever new guises:

“Parting Thoughts: Ten Lessons Learned from Florence Nightingale’s Life”

It begins, as one might expect, with “never, ever stop learning.” We couldn’t agree more.