A registered nurse (RN) is a nurse who has graduated or successfully passed a nursing program from a recognized nursing school and met the requirements outlined by a country, state, province or similar government-authorized licensing body to obtain a nursing license. An RN's scope of practice is determined by legislation, and is regulated by a professional body or council.
Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is the regulator for nursing and midwifery professions in the UK. The NMC maintains a register of all nurses, midwives and specialist community public health nurses and nursing associates eligible to practise within the UK. It sets and reviews standards for their education, training, conduct and performance. The NMC also investigates allegations of impaired fitness to practise.
Nurse education consists of the theoretical and practical training provided to nurses with the purpose to prepare them for their duties as nursing care professionals. This education is provided to student nurses by experienced nurses and other medical professionals who have qualified or experienced for educational tasks, traditionally in a type of professional school known as a nursing school of college of nursing. Most countries offer nurse education courses that can be relevant to general nursing or to specialized areas including mental health nursing, pediatric nursing, and post-operative nursing. Nurse education also provides post-qualification courses in specialist subjects within nursing.
International Nurses Day (IND) is an international day observed around the world on 12 May each year, to mark the contributions that nurses make to society.
The Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care is an academic faculty within King's College London. The faculty is the world's first nursing school to be continuously connected to a fully serving hospital and medical school. Established on 9 July 1860 by Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, it was a model for many similar training schools through the UK, Commonwealth and other countries for the latter half of the 19th century. It is primarily concerned with the education of people to become nurses and midwives. It also carries out nursing research, continuing professional development and postgraduate programmes. The Faculty forms part of the Waterloo campus on the South Bank of the River Thames and is now one of the largest faculties in the university.
Nursing in the United Kingdom has a long history. The current form of nursing is often considered as beginning with Florence Nightingale who pioneered modern nursing. Nightingale initiated formal schools of nursing in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The role and perception of nursing has dramatically changed from that of a handmaiden to the doctor to professionals in their own right. There are over 700,000 nurses in the United Kingdom and they work in a variety of settings, such as hospitals, health centres, nursing homes, hospices, communities, military, prisons, and academia, with most working for the National Health Service (NHS). Nurses work across all demographics and requirements of the public: adults, children, mental health, and learning disability. Nurses work in a range of specialties from the broad areas of medicine, surgery, theatres, and investigative sciences such as imaging. Nurses also work in large areas of sub-specialities such as respiratory, diabetes, cancer, neurology, infectious diseases, liver, research, cardiac, women's health, sexual health, emergency and acute care, gastrointestinal, infection prevention and control, neuroscience, ophthalmic, pain and palliative, and rheumatology. Nurses often work in multi-disciplinary teams but increasingly are found working independently.
The Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) provides healthcare services to rural, underserved populations since 1925, and educates nurse-midwives since 1939.
Nursing in Australia has evolved in training and regulation since the 19th century.
The word "nurse" originally came from the Latin word "nutrire", meaning to suckle, referring to a wet-nurse; only in the late 16th century did it attain its modern meaning of a person who cares for the infirm.
Nursing is a profession within the healthcare sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses can be differentiated from other healthcare providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice. Nurses practice in many specialties with differing levels of prescription authority. Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments; but there is evidence of international shortages of qualified nurses. Nurses collaborate with other healthcare providers such as physicians, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, and psychologists. There is a distinction between nurses and nurse practitioners; in the U.S., the latter are nurses with a graduate degree in advanced practice nursing, and are permitted to prescribe medications unlike the former. They practice independently in a variety of settings in more than half of the United States. Since the postwar period, nurse education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials, and many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are changing.
Dame Mary Rosalind Paget, DBE, ARRC, was a noted British nurse, midwife and reformer. She was the first superintendent, later inspector general, of the Queen's Jubilee Institute for District Nursing, which was renamed as the Queen's Institute of District Nursing in 1928 and as the Queen's Nursing Institute in 1973.
Dame Anne Marie Rafferty FRCN is a British nurse, academic and researcher. She is professor of nursing policy and former dean of the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at King's College London. She served as President of the Royal College of Nursing from 2019 to 2021.
Ruth Watson Lubic, CNM, EdD, FAAN, FACNM, is an American nurse-midwife and applied anthropologist who pioneered the role of nurse-midwives as primary care providers for women, particularly in maternity care. Lubic is considered to be one of the leaders of the nurse-midwifery movement in the United States.
Nursing in India is the practice of providing care for patients, families, and communities in that nation to improve health and quality of life.
Comfort Iyabo Amah Momoh, is a British midwife who specializes in the treatment of female genital mutilation (FGM). Born in Nigeria, Momoh is a member of the British FGM national clinical group, established in 2007 to train health professionals in how to deal with the practice. Until 2017 she served as a public-health specialist at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London. She is the editor of Female Genital Mutilation (2005).
The history of nursing in the United Kingdom relates to the development of the profession since the 1850s. The history of nursing itself dates back to ancient history, when the sick were cared for in temples and places of worship. In the early Christian era, nursing in the United Kingdom was undertaken by certain women in the Christian Church, their services being extended to patients in their homes. These women had no real training by today's standards, but experience taught them valuable skills, especially in the use of herbs and folk drugs, and some gained fame as the physicians of their era. Remnants of the religious nature of nurses remains in Britain today, especially with the retention of the job title "Sister" for a senior female nurse.
A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery.
