Nursing Students - Get to Know Who Began The Modern Tradition Of Nursing

Nursing Students - Get to Know Who Began The Modern Tradition Of Nursing

Most nursing students have nothing to answer when asked who first organized nursing school. Or else, they say the first person that comes to mind - Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale, a volunteer nurse in the British Army, offered some decent care to wounded soldiers throughout the Crimean War. She also helped to bring about better sanitary conditions and proper nursing care to military hospitals, seeing how the lack of hygiene was not making things better for the soldier patients. Because of her work, less soldiers succumbed to death. She later founded the Nightingale School and Home For Nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital in London.

However, the beginning of the tradition of organized nursing actually began a couple of centuries earlier, in France. A lady from a well-to-do family, Louise de Marillac, recently widowed then, decided to make a lifelong vocation of ministering to the sick and poor. It was during that time in the 1640s that she founded the Daughters of Charity in Paris, France, with the help of St. Vincent de Paul. The Daughters of Charity earned the distinction of being the first group of non-cloistered sisters; meaning, they went out of their way to leave the nunnery walls and go serve the poor communities. Going out of the monastery walls for charity works was something only men were known to do previously.

Part of the mission of the Daughters of Charity was ministering to and caring for the sick. They visited the poor in their homes and in hospital wards. They wore simple peasant attire. They cared for the aged, the mentally ill, and anyone in need.

Recognizing her role in the ministry to the sick and the needy, the Catholic Church in 1934 proclaimed Louise de Marillac as a Saint. She was only of the few nurses who were accorded such.

So as you pursue your nursing studies, know that you are pursuing a long, proud tradition that was pioneered by women who had to fight tremendous odds and a lot of prejudice about women straying into the field of medicine.

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