Nursing Study Guide/nursing profession

Definition of Nursing

According to the International Council of Nurses[[1]] Nursing encompasses autonomous and collaborative care of individuals of all ages, families, groups and communities, sick or well and in all settings. Nursing includes the promotion of health, prevention of illness, and the care of ill, disabled and dying people. Advocacy, promotion of a safe environment, research, participation in shaping health policy and in patient and health systems management, and education are also key nursing roles.

Evolution

In Alesandro Manzoni's account of the black plague, the parabolani were described as a group of knights and monks who found themselves immune to plague and responsible for the care of survivors. The knights templar (an order of fighting monks involved in the crusades) have also been mentioned as the pre-cursors of nursing. The ministrations of religious figures in ancient times was piece-meal and restricted to a spiritual focus. Florence Nightingale is widely regarded as the mother of modern nursing. She abandoned her aristocratic heritage to embrace a patriotic fervor and is credited with applying statistics to petition the British parliament for infirm soldiers in the 1852 crimean war. Mary Secombe has recently found some notoriety as a contemporary of Nightingale and some authors ascribe the origins of nursing to Lutheran or Roman catholic origins. Victoire Larminier and other religious orders were practising modern nursing principles by the 1920's. Nursing history in the church

Enlistment

A census of nurses from the late 1800's records several hundred nurses in the fledgling colony of Australia including untrained child and aboriginal female employees who were defined as caring for the sick. The first attempt to regulate nursing occurred shortly afterwards and was established in each of the states by the outbreak of 1914 war in Europe. In 2012 the state nursing authorities were disbanded and regulation was federalized in Australia so licenses became the responsibility of the commonwealth.