Historical Development of Nursing Timeline, Essay Example

Florence Nightingale to Present Day

Source of data: (E Notes, 2011)

Historical context

19^th Century 1844-1899

This century was highly influenced by the pioneering work of Florence Nightingale and the introduction of nursing into the casualties of the Crimean War in Turkey.  Nightingale pioneered nursing and is historically important as driving the concept of nursing into a regulated profession.  The American Civil War built upon Nightingales concepts and saw the formation of the American Army nurse corps in 1861.  This followed with the introduction of the first Nursing School, the Bellevue Hospital in 1873.  In 1890, Kate Marsden travelled to Siberia in search of a root remedial cure for leprosy. Anne Turner took a group of nurses to a hospital in Havana in order to establish a yellow fever treatment centre in 1899. In the same year the International Red Cross society was formed. (Nurs, 2010)

20^th Century  1900-1999

This century witnessed the rapid rise of nursing as an international profession and the formation of international regulated bodies.  Through graduate training courses to PhD, level the profession aligned with science and research and had influences on other professions like sociology, philosophy, anthropology, psychology  and Religion. Nurses continued to put themselves in harm’s way in order to help the wounded and dying.  In some cases, like that of Nurse Edith Cavell they paid with their lives.  Others like Leah Higbee received medals for valour.  Nurses like Elizabeth Kenny advanced the scientific aspect of nursing by authoring books on medical subject matter.  The Yale School of Nursing integrated the learning component of nursing into a graduate profession and integrated nursing theory into other important aspects of medicine like that of psychology and anthropology.  (Reverby, 1986)

21^st Century  2000-2011

The advancement of Education in nursing as a profession and the endorsement by the American College of the Association of Nursing endorsing the need for Nurses to aspire to a Doctorate Degree (PhD) in Nursing.  The profession has expanded to a truly regulated one at an international level.

Works Cited

E Notes. (2011). Timeline of Nursing History. Retrieved 8 15, 2011, from E Notes: http://www.enotes.com/topic/Timeline_of_nursing_history

Nurs, J. H. (2010). Florence Nightingale. A 19th-century mystic. Nursing, 10-35.

Reverby, S. (1986). Ordered to care: The dilemma of American nursing, 1850-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.