The study of nursing history helps us to better understand the issues of autonomy, unity, supply and demand, salary, and current practice. Learning from the role models of history, make positive changes in the present and provide options for the future. Provides the ability to make improvements on past practices and creating a sense of best practice. (Brodie, 2010).
Florence Nightingale is considered to be the founder of modern day nursing. She was influential in the development of nursing education, practice, and administration. (Hoyt, 2010) Nightingale’s work served to establish nearly all the advancements that would arise in the nursing profession in the coming decades. It was from her work, Notes on Nursing, set the tone for all theories that followed.
Prior to 1840, no formal education was provided to people who cared for the ill. These skills and lessons commonly provided in the form of generational learning or trial and error. The care of the sick usually fell to women of a lower social standing or class who were unable to obtain any other work.
Nightingale identified the need for formal training of nurses and workers in the public health arena. There has been substantial growth in the innovation of the nursing profession; there have been advanced nursing programs established due to the 'increasing complexities of modern nursing'. The turn of the twentieth century saw the creation of professional nursing organisations that allowed our profession to be self-regulated, this included formal training