Florence nightingale as a Nurse researcher Florence Nightingale is best known for having founded modern nursing and helped

improve the care provided by hospitals. She was named after her birthplace, Florence, Italy. Raised in England during the Victorian Age, her father provided her a good education through tutors, especially in classics and mathematics. She went on to seek a career in nursing, despite her family's disapproval. Up to that time nurses had mostly been religious, monastic women or untrained helpers of low repute. Nonetheless, she perceived a calling, and chose to rebel against the traditional woman's role as a wife and mother. Her early career began with extensive training and eventually her contributions during the Crimean War (1854-56). Florence trained in Egypt, Germany and France, before serving in a home for "gentlewomen" suffering from illness in London. During this time, she began to hear of the horrific conditions the wounded were living in during the Crimean War. She and thirty-eight other nurses volunteered to help tend to the wounded. She became famous for her dedication toward the welfare of her patients, earning the nickname "the Lady with the Lamp" for her tending the sick through the night. More significantly, she sought to improve sanitary conditions in the medical facilities. She proved her case through statistical analysis, using what she called "coxcombs," now known as "polar-area diagrams." Her proof of the effectiveness of proper hygiene for the recovery from wounds and disease led to a reform of the entire military hospital system. Nightingale's work continued to help improve health care through the rest of her life. After the war, using money donated from her former patients and the public, she founded the Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital. This institution continued to improve what was becoming the nursing profession. Many of the nurses trained at her schools went on to become matrons at the leading hospitals in England, further solidifying and organizing nurses. Nightingale remained unmarried, and retreated increasingly into the isolation of her home because of ill health. Yet through her writing, she remained an important consultant on health issues. Her extensive use of diagrams helped to make her work understandable to professionals and the common person alike. Her work won her fame, awards, and honors during her lifetime. She was honored with the Royal Red Cross in 1883 and was also the first woman elected to the Royal Statistical Society. In 1907, she was the first woman to be granted the British Order of Merit. By her death in 1910, Nightingale had lived to see enormous changes occur in the medical field because of her work. She broke through gender barriers and made nursing an organized and respectable profession. Health conditions improved in the military through her work and research during the Crimean War. Eventually health conditions began to improve all over England through her nursing schools. Her work was invaluable to society and set a foundation for high sanitary standards. The world is indebted to Florence Nightingale and her amazing contributions to medicine. URL: http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/florence.html Florence Nightingale- Mother of Modern Nursing

Florence Nightingale is recognized throughout the world as the founder of modern nursing. She was the second daughter born to wealthy parents, William Edward and Frances Nightingale. She was born on May 12, 1820 and named after her birthplace, Florence, Italy. Her older sister was named Parthenope, for the Greek name of her birth place, Naples. Both daughters were born on their parents' two year long honeymoon. Florence and Parthenope were schooled at home by their father who had attended Cambridge University. While Parthenope excelled at needlework and the arts, Florence was studious. The girls were enthusiastic and sociable and were expected to marry into high society. But while wandering in a garden one day, Florence heard a call from God, telling her to do his work. That work turned out to be nursing. Florence took an interest in hospitals and nursing, and made visits to the homes of the sick in the village. It was not considered proper for a well educated young woman to become a nurse in the mid1800s, however, and her parents forbade it. But during a vacation with family friends, Charles and Selina Bracebridge, Nightingale traveled through Germany in July 1850. While at Kaiserwerth near Dusseldorf, they visited Pastor Theodor Fliedner's hospital and school for deaconesses. Nightingale returned a year later and took three months of nurse's training.

Nightingale was now qualified to accept a position as Superintendent of the Establishment for Gentlewomen during Illness at No. 1 Harley Street, London and she began the job in 1853. A year later, France, Germany and Britain declared war on Russia, a conflict called the Crimean War. Sidney Hubert, Britain's Minister of War, knew Florence Nightingale and assigned her to oversee the introduction of female nurses into hospitals for the wounded in Turkey. "Lady-In-Chief" Nightingale and a contingent of 38 nurses arrived in the Constantinople suburb of Scutari on November 4, 1854. They were not welcomed at first by the male doctors and medics, and were essentially ignored. But when a fresh shipment of wounded arrived all nurses were kept very busy. The nurses performed nursing duties, but also tended to the men's spirits and other practical matters by writing letters and sending pay home to their families. The nurses were a huge success. After returning from the Crimean War a public fund was set up to support Nightingale's reforms of Britain's hospitals. She used it to set up the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St. Thomas Hospital in London and Mrs. Sarah Wardroper became the director. Nurses in training learned mostly with hands-on experience, and minimal book study. Miss Nightingale scrutinized the nurses' reports and logs to make sure they were learning what they needed to know. Following their training, Miss Nightingale invited nurses to tea and gave them books before they were sent off to hospitals throughout Britain, and to set up Nightingale Training Centers abroad in Europe and the United States.

Although Nightingale believed that disease developed spontaneously in unsanitary conditions, her insistence on the necessity of cleanliness lead to a dramatic decrease in the spread of disease. In November of 1856 a program was established to examine the Army's medical health, and Nightingale was part of it. By 1860 dramatic improvements had been made in Army medical care and barracks. In the following years she worked toward improvements in the India based British Army's conditions, as well as Indian public health and irrigation systems. She was instrumental in making British army statistics the best in Europe at the time, and as a result became the first woman to be elected as a fellow of the Statistical Society. Florence Nightingale was bedridden with illness in her later years, but received numerous awards for her lifetime of accomplishments. She became the first woman to receive the British Order of Merit in 1907. Florence Nightingale died at the age of 90 on August 13, 1910. After her death nurses throughout the world wanted to pay tribute to her, and the Florence Nightingale Foundation was formed to carry on the work of educating nurses. It continues to operate near St. Thomas Hospital in London. (www. Essortment.com/ Florence-nightingale-brief-biography-20247.html)

Florence Nightingale as a researcher was born in Italy on 12th May 1820. Despite opposition from her family she decided to devote her life to nursing and campaigning for better health care and sanitation for all. It was her work during the Crimean War that created the legend of the Lady with the Lamp and it was her experience here that drove her to continue, researching, writing and tirelessly campaigning. After the Crimean War she demanded a Royal Commission into the Military Hospitals and the health of the Army, she began investigating the health and sanitation in the British Army in India, and the local population. Money which had been sent by the general public to thank her for her work in the Crimea was used to establish the first organised, training school for nurses, the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas Hospital. (nursingcrib.com/nursing-notes-reveiwer/Florence-nightingale-biography. Her greatest achievement was to make nursing a respectable profession for women. Florences writings on hospital planning and organization had a profound effect in England and across the world, publishing over 200 books, reports and pamphlets. Florence died at the age of 90, on 13th August 1910, she had become one of the most famous and influential women of the 19th century. Her writings continue to be a resource for nurses, health managers and planners to this day. Florence Nightingale is famous for being the Lady with the Lamp who nursed soldiers during the Crimean War, but this was just one of her many great achievements.