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This is a thread to discuss the "history of nurses and nursing".

Before the foundation of modern nursing, nuns and the military often provided nursing-like services.

The religious and military roots of modern nursing remain in evidence today in many countries, for example in the United Kingdom, senior female nurses are known as sisters. Nurses execute the "Orders" of other health care professionals in addition to being responsible for their own practice.
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American Nursing: A History of Knowledge, Authority, and the Meaning of Work

by Patricia D'Antonio (no photo)

Synopsis:

This new interpretation of the history of nursing in the United States captures the many ways women reframed the most traditional of all gender expectations—that of caring for the sick—to create new possibilities for themselves, to renegotiate the terms of some of their life experiences, and to reshape their own sense of worth and power.

For much of modern U.S. history, nursing was informal, often uncompensated, and almost wholly the province of female family and community members. This began to change at the end of the nineteenth century when the prospect of formal training opened for women doors that had been previously closed. Nurses became respected professionals, and becoming a formally trained nurse granted women a range of new social choices and opportunities that eventually translated into economic mobility and stability.

Patricia D'Antonio looks closely at this history—using a new analytic framework and a rich trove of archival sources—and finds complex, multiple meanings in the individual choices of women who elected a nursing career. New relationships and social and professional options empowered nurses in constructing consequential lives, supporting their families, and participating both in their communities and in the health care system.

Narrating the experiences of nurses, D'Antonio captures the possibilities, power, and problems inherent in the different ways women defined their work and lived their lives. Scholars in the history of medicine, nursing, and public policy, those interested in the intersections of identity, work, gender, education, and race, and nurses will find this a provocative book.

In my experience (purely anecdotal) the two professions with the highest proportion of really nice people are nurses and librarians.

Ancient history

The first known Nurse, Phoebe, was mentioned in Romans 16:1.

During the early years of the Christian Church, St. Paul sent a deaconess Phoebe to Rome as the first visiting nurse. She took care of both women and men

In the 16th century, Protestant reformers shut down the monasteries and convents, allowing a few to continue in operation hundred municipal hospices.

Those nuns who had been serving as nurses were given pensions or told to get married and stay home.

In Catholic areas however the role of the nursing sister continued uninterrupted.
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A Short History of Nursing from the earliest times to the present day

by Lavinia L. Dock (no photo)

Synopsis:

Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE CARE OF THE AT the opening of the Christian era the Roman Empire extended over the greater part of Europe, a part of Britain, and great tracts of Asia Minor and Northern Africa.

Pre-eminent as a conquering, military empire, it was equally distinguished for its elaborate political, The Roman Empire at legal, and administrative organization. the dawn of jts pagan religion was, on the whole, Christianity tolerant and free from the more unintelligent superstitions.

The Roman genius was extremely practical and business-like, and Roman officials allowed the freemen of conquered populations free action and thought on all but two topics?economics and politics.

As in Russia under the Czars, subjects who never forgot those taboos might live in peace. The political economy of Rome was based on slavery, the institution that finally undermined the empire.

The age was a callous, even a cruel one, yet there were tendencies alive which prepared a welcome for better things.

Women belonging to the patrician families had been strengthening their position through a couple of hundred years of the Republic, and besides a notable dignity in home life they had gained a social liberty which allowed them to go freely about in public, dine out and receive their husbands' guests at home, in marked contrast to the seclusion in which Greek women lived.

It will be remembered that Roman matrons once formed a deputation to the Forum to protest against sumptuary legislation. Such women had also quite exceptional advantages in educational matters.

An alternative to the old pagan religious ceremony of marriage had been evolved in the free marriage contract. This gave the wife entire control over her own property and made her the social equal of her husband.

Celebrating Nurses

by Christine E. Hallett (no photo)

Synopsis:

This refreshing narrative history of nursing marks an exception to standard, often dry academic descriptions of the nursing profession. It presents dramatic, highly readable illustrated stories of nursing's pioneering, often heroic leaders. Following an account of early nineteenth-century nursing practice during the Napoleonic Wars, the book goes on to highlight the life and work of Florence Nightingale who, in the 1850s, elevated nursing to a respected branch of medicine when she served on the Crimean War's battlefields.

Also chronicled are the contributions to nursing by Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and the poet Walt Whitman during the American Civil War. Surgical nursing first became important in the late nineteenth century, following discoveries by Robert Koch in Germany and Louis Pasteur in France of germ theory and infection control.

Early twentieth-century accounts chronicle the origin of public health services, and include the story of Adelaide Nutting, the world's first professor of nursing at Columbia Teacher's College in New York. Here too is the story of Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I. Nursing's contributions during World War II, as well as in the Korean and Vietnam wars are also described in several vivid accounts.

A concluding chapter explains how twenty-first-century nursing has expanded to cover many duties that were once the responsibility of junior doctors. The book's absorbing text is complemented with approximately 200 illustrations and photos.

Thank you so much for starting this thread, Bentley. As a retired member of this profession . . . after 42 years . . . I think I could probably write my own book . . . but alas my memories shall remain mine alone.

Nursing provides an opportunity I've not seen in many other career choices. It requires a desire to be of service and a sense of guardianship for the welfare of others and a sense of infinite satisfaction in knowing that you have helped someone else in their time of need. I knew this was what I wanted to do from the time I was 10 yrs. old . . . and I've never regretted my choice.

You are welcome. Well share when you can (smile). I bet you can.

We need nurses like yourself in this world - we do not have enough.

Peter wrote: "In my experience (purely anecdotal) the two professions with the highest proportion of really nice people are nurses and librarians."

That is a very nice commentary for the nurses and librarians in the group.

Great adds - you are making Tomerobber very happy.

Kathy,
Thanks for the heads-up on this . . . I'll have to look for it . . . I bought the three books about midwives in England in the fifties because of the PBS series based on them and am finding them a great read . . .

by Jennifer Worth

See - here she is (grins) - thanks for the adds Tomerobber.

The role of the nurse is always evolving and this is the latest specialty which is important to law enforcement.

Forensic Nurse: The New Role of the Nurse in Law Enforcement

by Serita Stevens (no photo)

Synopsis

ON THE FRONT LINES
A young victim of a hit and run is brought to the ER...A college student thinks she may have been raped....A homeless man is covered with chemical burns but won't say how he got them... Across the country, in moments of crisis, nurses are often the first witnesses to acts of trauma. And when the human body itself is a crime scene, what a nurse does--from asking the right questions to preserving the key evidence--can make all the difference in the world.

IN THE HEART OF THE ACTION
Now, a new kind of nurse is being deployed to the front lines. Detective, advocate, caregiver: specially trained forensic nurses play an increasingly critical role in cases of violence, negligence and mayhem--and giving justice a fighting chance.

AT THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME...
This book chronicles dozens of riveting cases, from the bizarre to the commonplace. Spotlighting pioneering personalities in forensic nursing today, this book shows how forensic nurses do their job, why they often become key witnesses in trials, and how these unsung heroes help police solve society's most baffling crimes.

Hi everybody . . thanks for add. links . . . more good reads to add to my stack.

I think three of us here are nurses, so we know what we like!!!!!

The last of the 77 angels, Mildred Dalton Manning, died in March of this year. These were women of unbelievable courage who would not leave their patients in the caves of Corregidor and were captured by the Japanese.

We Band of Angels: the Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

by Elizabeth Norman

Synopsis:

Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as a "grippingly told" story of "power and relevance," here is the true, untold account of the first American women to prove their mettle under combat conditions. Later, during three years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Japanese, they also demonstrated their ability to survive. Filled with the thoughts and impressions of the women who lived it, "every page of this history is fascinating" (The Washington Post). We Band of Angels

In the fall of 1941, the Philippines was a gardenia-scented paradise for the American Army and Navy nurses stationed there. War was a distant rumor, life a routine of easy shifts and evenings of dinner and dancing under the stars. On December 8 all that changed, as Japanese bombs rained on American bases in Luzon, and the women's paradise became a fiery hell. Caught in the raging battle, the nurses set up field hospitals in the jungles of Bataan and the tunnels of Corregidor, where they saw the most devastating injuries of war, and suffered the terrors of shells and shrapnel.

But the worst was yet to come. As Bataan and Corregidor fell, a few nurses escaped, but most were herded into internment camps enduring three years of fear and starvation. Once liberated, they returned to an America that at first celebrated them, but later refused to honor their leaders with the medals they clearly deserved. Here, in letters, diaries, and firsthand accounts, is the story of what really happened during those dark days, woven together in a compelling saga of women in war.

Great job Kathy on keeping up your threads - as always a job well done.

The adds are very interesting.

Thanks for all of the adds on the HMS threads.

The nurses memorial statue at the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C., entitled "Faith, Hope, and Charity" validates everything in this book about the service of American nurses in Vietnam.

Women at War; The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam

by Elizabeth M. Norman(no photo)

Synopsis:

Women at War The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam Elizabeth Norman "This is a powerful story about some of nursing's finest contributions. The profession is indebted to this author for her persistence and sensitivity in capturing this important piece of history."--"American Journal of Nursing" Norman tells the dramatic story of fifty women--members of the Army, Navy, and Air Force Nurse Corps--who went to war, working in military hospitals, aboard ships, and with air evacuation squadrons during the Vietnam War. Here, in a moving narrative, the women talk about why they went to war, the experiences they had while they were there, and how war affected them physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Vietnam Nurses' Memorial

Kathy wrote: "Nurses in Nazi Germany

by Bronwyn Rebekah McFarland-Icke (no photo)

Synopsis:

This book tells the story of Ge..."

Wow! This is exactly my kind of book

Is this a new book? I am asking this because if it is not then I can probably borrow it from the library or get it from the second hand bookstore.

@Kathy......that book covers a subject that is never covered in most histories of the Nazis and the war. What a great find. I will be looking for it on eBay which may be the only place I will be able to find it. Thanks so much for the recommendation.

Speaking from personal experience, the trauma unit is one of the toughest assignments in any hospital. This little book show a side of trauma care that most, except physicians/nurses, are unaware of......that the caregiver needs comfort as well. It is more than just a job and much of the experience is taken home with you. Care for those who care for others.

The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit

by Laurie Barkin (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit When the Caregiver Needs Solace The Comfort Garden is Laurie Barkin's account of the five years she worked as a psychiatric nurse on the surgical/trauma unit at San Francisco General Hospital. Told against the backdrop of patients who survived motor vehicle accidents, falls, fires, fists, bullets, and knives, The Comfort Garden is a metaphor for the emotional support caregivers need. The story illuminates the issues of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma that may develop in caregivers when exposure to tragedy becomes routine.

I'm not sure I could read that book, Kathy.

The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder

by Charles Graeber

Synopsis:

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.

Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.

Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.

In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.

Diary of a Failed Nurse

by Coquilles Turnpaw (no photo)

Synopsis:

What is it like being a new nurse? This is a collection of experiences from my first year working as an RN in a busy, inner city hospital. It details the thought processes that most of us on the floor have at some point, and gives a terrifying account of what's the worst that could possibly (and did) happen.

The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives

by Theresa Brown

Synopsis:

In a book as eye-opening as it is riveting, practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day on a hospital’s cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, lives can be lost, life-altering medical treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. In Brown’s skilled hands--as both a dedicated nurse and an insightful chronicler of events--we are given an unprecedented view into the individual struggles as well as the larger truths about medicine in this country, and by shift’s end, we have witnessed something profound about hope and healing and humanity.

Every day, Theresa Brown holds patients' lives in her hands. On this day there are four. There is Mr. Hampton, a patient with lymphoma to whom Brown is charged with administering a powerful drug that could cure him--or kill him; Sheila, who may have been dangerously misdiagnosed; Candace, a returning patient who arrives (perhaps advisedly) with her own disinfectant wipes, cleansing rituals, and demands; and Dorothy, who after six weeks in the hospital may finally go home. Prioritizing and ministering to their needs takes the kind of skill, sensitivity, and, yes, humor that enable a nurse to be a patient’s most ardent advocate in a medical system marked by heartbreaking dysfunction as well as miraculous success.

Heroines of Mercy Street

by Pamela D. Toler

Synopsis:

A look at the lives of the real nurses depicted in the PBS show Mercy Street

HEROINES OF MERCY STREET tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, mansion turned war-time hospital and setting for the new PBS drama Mercy Street. Among the Union soldiers, doctors, wounded men from both sides, freed slaves, politicians, speculators, and spies who passed through the hospital in the crossroads of the Civil War, were nurses who gave their time freely and willingly to save lives and aid the wounded.

These women saw casualties on a scale Americans had never seen before, and medicine was at a turning point. HEROINES OF MERCY STREET follows the lives of women like Dorothea Dix, Mary Phinney, Anne Reading, and more before, during, and after their epic struggle in Alexandria and reveals their personal contributions to this astounding period in the advancement of medicine.

Sounds very interesting.

I think so, too.

Labor Pains: The Birth Stories of Nurse O’Neill

by Rita Batchley (no photo)

Synopsis:

In a timely tale filled with poignant birth stories, Labor Pains, takes its audience on a road trip of a lifetime.

Ride along as, Paige O'Neill RN, a labor and delivery nurse brings babies into the world for a living but can't seem to have another of her own. As a natural born healer, Paige intuitively knows how to relieve the pain of her patients; but, when it comes to her own suffering she relies more and more on alcohol.

From the sacred realms of the delivery rooms to the dark alleys of binge drinking, this road trip into Mercy General will open your eyes to what really goes on behind the scenes of a health care Goliath that takes over a small community hospital. Here, management cares more about making money than taking care of patients and conditions for the nurses become too much to bear.

Labor Pains is transformation: a new life struggles to unfold; a united purpose grips the nurses and a political movement is born. In many workplaces, nurses just want to do their jobs and go home, but at Mercy Hospital getting involved in politics becomes a necessity. Healthcare is changing. The battle lines between big box brands and patient care have been drawn and nurses can no longer remain neutral.

Giving birth is hard, but giving birth to change can be even harder. A whole new meaning to Labor Pains emerges when a labor union organizes the nurses to stick together and make a difference. A professional nurses’ association, the Nurses Alliance for Quality Healthcare, teaches the nurses to push back in order to give birth to the changes needed to keep the spirit of nursing alive.

Labor Pains bring a whole new appreciation for what nurses do for a living and for what nurses are doing to take a stand for the integrity of care they believe in.