Dame Cicely Mary Strode Saunders was an English nurse, social worker, physician and writer. She is noted for her work in terminal care research and her role in the birth of the hospice movement, emphasising the importance of palliative care in modern medicine, and opposing the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia.
Hildegard E. Peplau was an American nurse and the first published nursing theorist since Florence Nightingale. She created the middle-range nursing theory of interpersonal relations, which helped to revolutionize the scholarly work of nurses. As a primary contributor to mental health law reform, she led the way towards humane treatment of patients with behavior and personality disorders.
A stereotype is a widely held and fixed notion of a specific type of person and is often oversimplified and can be offensive. Stereotypes of people and groups are harmful, especially when they lack factual information. Nursing as a profession has been stereotyped throughout history. The stereotypes given to nursing as well as women in nursing has been well documented. A common misconception is that all nurses are female; this misconception has led to the emergence of another stereotype that male nurses are effeminate. These generalized perceptions of the nursing profession have aided in the misrepresentation of nurses in the media as well as the mischaracterization of nurses in the eyes of the public. The image of a nurse depicted by the media is typically of a female being over-sexualized as well as diminished intellectually. This notion is then portrayed in get-well cards, television, film and books. The over-sexualized nurse is commonly referred to as a naughty nurse and is often seen as a sex symbol or nymphomaniac. Along with these common stereotypes, studies have identified several other popular images used in media such as handmaiden, angel, torturer, homosexual male, alcoholic, buffoon and woman in white. Common stereotypes of nursing and portrayal of these misrepresentations have fueled a discussion on the effects they have on the profession.
A nurse practitioner (NP) is an advanced practice registered nurse and a type of mid-level practitioner. NPs are trained to assess patient needs, order and interpret diagnostic and laboratory tests, diagnose disease, formulate and prescribe medications and treatment plans. NP training covers basic disease prevention, coordination of care, and health promotion.
Lystra Gretter was a Canadian-American nurse who devoted her career to improving the nursing field in Michigan, promoting nursing as a profession, and writing the Nightingale Pledge, a nurses' pledge.
Nursing management consists of the performance of the leadership functions of governance and decision-making within organizations employing nurses. It includes processes common to all management like planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. It is common for registered nurses to seek additional education to earn a Master of Science in Nursing or Doctor of Nursing Practice to prepare for leadership roles within nursing. Management positions increasingly require candidates to hold an advanced degree in nursing.
New York State Department of Health Code, Section 405, also known as the Libby Zion Law, is a regulation that limits the amount of resident physicians' work in New York State hospitals to roughly 80 hours per week. The law was named after Libby Zion, the daughter of author Sidney Zion, who died in 1984 at the age of 18. Sidney blamed Libby's death on overworked resident physicians and intern physicians. In July 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education adopted similar regulations for all accredited medical training institutions in the United States.
Emergency nursing is a specialty within the field of professional nursing focusing on the care of patients who require prompt medical attention to avoid long-term disability or death. In addition to addressing "true emergencies," emergency nurses increasingly care for people who are unwilling or unable to get primary medical care elsewhere and come to emergency departments for help. In fact, only a small percentage of emergency department (ED) patients have emergency conditions such as a stroke, heart attack or major trauma. Emergency nurses also tend to patients with acute alcohol and/or drug intoxication, psychiatric and behavioral problems and those who have been raped.
Virginia Avenel Henderson was an American nurse, researcher, theorist, and writer.
Inpatient care is the care of patients whose condition requires admission to a hospital. Progress in modern medicine and the advent of comprehensive out-patient clinics ensure that patients are only admitted to a hospital when they are extremely ill or have severe physical trauma.
Florence Wald was an American nurse, former Dean of Yale School of Nursing, and largely credited as "the mother of the American hospice movement". She led the founding of Connecticut Hospice, the first hospice program in the United States. Late in life, Wald became interested in the provision of hospice care within prisons. In 1998, Wald was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
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.
Rufayda Al-Aslamia, was an Arab medical and social worker recognized as the first female Muslim nurse and the first female surgeon in Islam. She is known as the first nurse in the world.
Bullying in the medical profession is common, particularly of student or trainee physicians. It is thought that this is at least in part an outcome of conservative traditional hierarchical structures and teaching methods in the medical profession which may result in a bullying cycle.
Kevin Pho is an American physician of internal medicine, media commentator, public speaker, and author. He is the founder and editor of KevinMD.com, a website aimed at medical professionals.
Barbara Bates, MD, MA was an American physician, author and historian. She authored a leading medical textbook on physical examination. Bates was on the faculty at several U.S. medical schools, and she was on both the medical and nursing school faculties at the University of Pennsylvania. She helped to develop the role of the nurse practitioner in American healthcare and she wrote a thorough account on the history of tuberculosis in Pennsylvania.
Suzanne Gordon is an American journalist and author who writes about healthcare delivery and health care systems and patient safety and nursing. Gordon coined the term "Team Intelligence," to describe the constellation of skills and knowledge needed to build the kind of teams upon which patient safety depends. Her work includes, First Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety, a collection of essays edited with Ross Koppel and Beyond the Checklist: What Else Health Care Can Learn from Aviation Safety and Teamwork, written with commercial pilot Patrick Mendenhall and medical educator Bonnie Blair O’Connor, with a foreword by Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.
Mary Starke Harper was an African American nurse who worked in bedside nursing, nurse research and health policy. She spent several years working for the Department of Veterans Affairs. She performed clinical research on the geriatric psychiatric population and minority health. In 1972, Harper created the NIMH Minority Fellowship Program. She served on four presidential administration advisory panels with regards to mental health and health care reform. She died in 2006 as the recipient of several honors and author of over 180 publications.
Beulah Ream Allen was an American nurse, physician, and civilian physician during World War II. After graduating with a nursing degree in 1922, she worked as a supervising nurse and headed the educational department for the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. She worked as a hospital inspector for the state of Utah until 1928, when she moved to San Francisco to attend medical school. While earning her degree at the University of California, San Francisco, she worked as a nurse in the Bay Area. Upon her graduation in 1932, she moved to the Philippines, where she opened a medical practice.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospitals became severe for some hospital systems of the United States in the spring of 2020, a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic began. Some had started to run out of beds, along with having shortages of nurses and doctors. By November 2020, with 13 million cases so far, hospitals throughout the country had been overwhelmed with record numbers of COVID-19 patients. Nursing students had to fill in on an emergency basis, and field hospitals were set up to handle the overflow.
