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 […]