Public Health Nursing Paper
Historical nurses have made many contributions to the public health field. If it was not for the assistance of the pioneer nurses, public health nursing would not be what it is today. Florence Nightingale, Lillian Wald, and Mary Breckinridge were all educated nurses who have played very significant roles in influencing and impacting public health nursing today. The founder of the nursing profession, Florence Nightingale, transformed the health care field. Ultimately, Florence Nightingale inspired the United States about public health nursing by her "vision of trained nurses and her model of nursing education" (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014, p. 17). The development happened while she was nurse training with Pastor Fliedner, and "later led
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"Lillian Wald demonstrated an exceptional ability to develop approaches and programs to solve the health care and social problems of her times" (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014, p. 18). Today, nurses can still learn from her ideas about public health nursing. Wald moved to the Lower East side of New York to "establish a settlement house with the primary goal of providing nursing services for the poor" (www.lillianwald.org). Wald was one of the founders of the Henry Street Settlement. She and other trained nurses lived at the settlement; the agency provided nursing visits to those in need. Furthermore, Wald supported the American Red Cross which led to the formation of home nursing care in rural areas. As described by Stanhope and Lancaster, Wald's four major contributions to the area of public health nursing are as follows: providing home nursing care on a fee-for-service basis, establishing an effective cost-accounting system for visiting nurses, using advertisements in newspapers and on radio to recruit nurses, and reducing mortality form infectious diseases. (p.18). To this day, home health nursing still exists. Nurses continue to visit patients in their home to provide nursing care. In addition, she also founded school nursing to help decrease students from being absent from school. The first school nurse, Lina Rogers, educated parents by making home visits and monitoring absenteeism of children from the school system. Even to this day, schools continue to have nurses to assist students with their health care
"Lillian Wald demonstrated an exceptional ability to develop approaches and programs to solve the health care and social problems of her times" (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014, p. 18). Today, nurses can still learn from her ideas about public health nursing. Wald moved to the Lower East side of New York to "establish a settlement house with the primary goal of providing nursing services for the poor" (www.lillianwald.org). Wald was one of the founders of the Henry Street Settlement. She and other trained nurses lived at the settlement; the agency provided nursing visits to those in need. Furthermore, Wald supported the American Red Cross which led to the formation of home nursing care in rural areas. As described by Stanhope and Lancaster, Wald's four major contributions to the area of public health nursing are as follows: providing home nursing care on a fee-for-service basis, establishing an effective cost-accounting system for visiting nurses, using advertisements in newspapers and on radio to recruit nurses, and reducing mortality form infectious diseases. (p.18). To this day, home health nursing still exists. Nurses continue to visit patients in their home to provide nursing care. In addition, she also founded school nursing to help decrease students from being absent from school. The first school nurse, Lina Rogers, educated parents by making home visits and monitoring absenteeism of children from the school system. Even to this day, schools continue to have nurses to assist students with their health care