Reflective Journal

Nursing, along with the medical field, has changed exponentially in the last 100 years. Nurses trained in the 20th century would find themselves in a very foreign and demanding position in today's modern world. There have been so many good changes but some of them are causing some apprehension about what we as nurses can expect in our future. With all of the new technology and new techniques are veteran nurses remaining up to date? With new technologies and increased responsibilities do nurses pose a bigger risk to their patients? Nurses of today are hard working, full bladdered, machines. What they do not many others would. I wonder what nurses such as Vera Brittain or Clara Barton would think of the world of nurses today. I would imagine they would have some sound advise like persevere to the end or something about serving our patients is the best service one can ask for.  No matter the apprehension, I am excited to be a modern nurse. I look back at Vera Brittain's experience

The world was booming at this point in time. Socially, economically, and technologically this was a time to be remembered. People were discovering themselves and they were discovering more about the world around us and really how to best live in it than they ever had before. Health care was effected by all of this. From the AIDS epidemic to the Hospice movement and all of the issues that we are dealing with today as far as how to pay for our health care and what nurses can do to protect and care for their patients in the best way possible while still being cost effective and efficient. Where do nurses stand in all of this? Nurses are the integral go between in health care. They are the patient advocate as well as the doctor's and administration's extension. During this period nurses were just beginning to understand the importance of personal safety and the use of what is now known as "standard precautions" (gloves, masks, gowns, etc) were just beginning to be realize

This week in the history of nursing, the role of nurses really started to look a lot more familiar. During the 1940's-60's changes began to happen that gave nurses more autonomy so they started to look more like the R.N.'s of today rather than the glorified tech's of the past. Out of necessity during WWII and the Korean war nurses were given much more responsibility of their patients safety and status. As surgical techniques and technology advanced nurses followed their doctors to provide new forms of support and better care for patients. One of the little tid bits of information that I found terrifying this week is that during the Vietnam war (and probably during the Korean war as well) the majority of nurses who served had less than two years worth of experience. In effect they were nursing novices, babies of their profession fresh out of the womb of nursing knowledge and off to create havoc for their poor patients.  I am not trying to say they were untrained and ill

This week in nursing history brought us to the 1920's. In the United States the roaring 20's not only described the social structure but I would like to think it described people in general, even in the medical profession. During this time the world had just been run through the mill in the first world war and the beginnings of the social structures leading to the second world war were being set. For the first time we had professionals being incredibly mobile. Nurses going from the States to Europe to help in the aftermath. What these nurses did is bring back what they had learned to benefit the citizens here. One nurse in particular is Mary Breckenridge. Mary was one of the first nurses to bridge the gap between society and how society comes to be, by people being born. She recognized that mothers and neonates needed care.  On the converse we had Margaret Sanger who recognized the importance of reproductive and sexual health for woman and began to offer woman options to preven

Nursing in the early 1900's was just starting to look like what it is today. It was becoming more socially acceptable for women in all of society to become nurses and people were beginning to see the need for additional health care providers. This was also the beginning of our modern social medicine set up. During this time period we had the advent of the public health and education system which was largely managed by trained nurses as well as many medical technological advances that were beginning to take place. WWI was also an instrumental game changer. There were wounds that no one had ever seen before and social structures beginning to take place that would not only change the shape of society but also how medical professionals function in their roles. There were women like Lavinia Dock, Agnes Hunt, Lenah Higbee, Helen Fairchild, and so many others that made huge and lasting impacts on how nurses practice their medical art. During this time we also had one of the queens of soci