Having her parents relenting to her restless passion for nursing in 1851, Florence had a three-month nursing training in Germany. Her desire to have a career in medicine was reinforced when she met the first American female physician, Elizabeth Blackwell, during the latter’s visit to London. Nightingale developed an interest in nursing, and despite her parents’ denial, began visiting hospitals and medical institutes in 1844. Yet, she had another plan that ended up into a long-lasting celebrated legacy. It’s our mission to ensure that our graduates do that as well, each and every shift.Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, was born in 1820, to a wealthy family who expected her to make a good marriage and live a conventional upper-class woman’s life. She approached her patients with empathy and humanity, and gave them hope. She didn’t just treat diagnoses, she treated people. Today, at Joyce University, our belief in holistic nursing is informed by Nightingale’s commitment to make a patient’s environment as clean, functional, and humane as possible. Her real power was inspiring legions of other nurses to provide care to their patients in a comprehensive manner.

Nightingale’s influence reaches further than just graphs and charts, though. We carry on her legacy every time we record a data point. Nightingale, like the rest of us, did plenty of that. Ask any nurse what they do all day, and they’ll probably mention charting. While modern nurses might not spend their shifts charting the ravages of war or epidemics, Nightingale did emphasize the importance of collecting and keeping good data. It’s totally sensible to call Florence Nightingale the inventor of the infographic, and nurses today still have a commitment to documentation and data just like Nightingale did. She also documented the rate and spread of disease in the Crimean War, and created clear, easy-to-read charts that resemble modern graphs. Nightingale’s not just famous for her approach to hospital environments. She Charted, Documented, and Got the Right Data Related resource: What Is Holistic Problem Solving? 3. You also have to make sure the person is well in a broad sense. Narrowly treating a single symptom or focusing on one issue is never enough. Wellness and well-being is still a main focus of holistic nursing, something we emphasize.

That emphasis on the whole person and their environment continues to inform the work we do at Joyce. Nightingale insisted on bringing light and fresh air into what had been a dank quagmire, improving patients’ quality of life as they recovered. Patients were often stuffed in cramped quarters, served inferior food, and left to suffer. When she first began her career, many hospitals were filthy. Her famous “ Notes on Nursing,” first published in 1859, devotes several sections to cleanliness and patient environment. One of Nightingale’s most important innovations was her emphasis on hospital cleanliness and sanitation. Nightingale understood that when she chose to go to Crimea, and we continue to carry on her drive today. Plenty of students pass through our doors with the drive to do something that’s meaningful, difficult, and satisfying. Nurses choose a life of long shifts, hard problems, and human vulnerability. She saw war, human suffering, and hardship up close - and then did something about it.įor many nurses, nursing is more than just a job. Nightingale, however, resisted these conventions and eventually became a nurse in the Crimean War of 1853-56. Had Nightingale’s family had their way, she would have led an easier, more comfortable life of wealth and security. When she grew up in the first half of the 1800s, women of her class and station were supposed to marry well and not pursue careers of their own. She Answered a Callįlorence Nightingale wasn’t supposed to be a nurse. Related resource: 10 Famous Nurses in History That Revolutionized Healthcare 1. Just as Nightingale passed them on to generations of nurses, we endeavor to pass them on to our students. These are a few lessons from the life of Florence Nightingale we still take to heart at Joyce University well over a century later. Medical science has advanced since Nightingale’s day, but many of the values, ideas, and teachings she advocated for are still applicable today. The most prominent figure of that legacy is Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. If you’re a nurse, then you’re the beneficiary of a long legacy of care.

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