Nursing and American Nurses Association
How does knowledge of the foundations and history of nursing provide a context in which to understand current practice? Identify at least three trends in nursing practice demonstrated by the interactive timeline, located within the Multimedia folder in Canyon Connect. How have these trends influenced your perspective of nursing practice? • Describe the definition of nursing as put forward by the American Nurses Association. How does it address the metaparadigm theories of nursing? After reading the Foundation and History of Nursing I am proud to be a nurse.
All the women who helped shape nursing over the years in such diverse ways from Florence Nightingale(1820-1930) who started nursing on the road to respectability to Linda Richards(1841-1930) who was awarded the first diploma of nursing in the USA to Mabel Keaton Staupers (1890-1989) who achieved a life long goal of racial integration of the American Nurse Association to Mildred Montag (1908-2004) who created the 2 year Associates Degree in nursing has helped me understand how we arrived where we are today and why we are still trying to define what educational pathway to take.
Some of the trends in nursing practice seen in the interactive timeline are how these early women organized and improved the conditions for the sick and doing so gained the respect of the military and the government. This showed then and it does today that nursing care makes a positive difference in outcomes and the more education a nurse has the lower the risk of death for patients.
March / April 2005 Nursing research published a study by Dr Carol Eastbrooks and her colleagues showing that baccalaureate prepared nurses have a positive impact on mortality rates at 49 Canadian hospitals. This study confirmed the findings from Dr Aiken’s landmark study in 2003. Early on nurses strived for more education and found ways to move the profession of nursing forward so we have the choices we have today.
These early pioneers laid the groundwork for the specialties we have in nursing today, for example Anesthesia, Obstetrics Public Health Nursing and Patient Education. The hard work and accomplishments by these women makes me more determined to further my education. The definition of nursing as put forward by the American Nurses Association has as its first tenet caring of the patient to promote health and healing, it includes the patient environment, the medical and social aspects of atient care. This is the metaparadigm concept that has endured since Florence Nightingale wrote about them in her book “Notes on Nursing” Other areas discussed in the definition of nursing is using reseach and evidence based practice, also increasing nurses knowledge with further education It is mentioned to get involved in social issues to influence social justice. The definition of nursing covers broadly all the principals that should guide our practice
