My sincere thanks to Dr. David Williams, Nursing Professor, at the University of Florida, for stimulating my interest in Nursing History. I have always appreciated his story about the New York Times Newspaper reports on the first day the first modern Nurses Training School opened at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.
Thanks to the Nursing Historians who have set our story in Print, Florence Nightingale, M.A, Nutting, L. Richards, and many others of the dedicated early leaders. Two of my favorite more recent history texts are by L.Y. Kelly (1981) and G & J. Griffin (1973). Both the American Journals of Nursing and Nursing Outlook have contributed many interesting and well-documented articles about our not so distance past.
The nursing organization, The National League for Nurses and The American Nurses Association as well as many of the specialty nursing associations' as well as many of the specialty nursing associations' journals and pamphlets have added to nursing vast store of historical facts. If you find yourself inspired by the heroics of the nurses who have paved the path for nursing, as we know it today, visit the library and the net! Both contain interesting and eventful stories of our past.
Remember while nursing may have been "the oldest profession," nursing as we know it today is a very young profession. That's why when registered nurses are caring for patients/clients we call it " Practicing Nursing."
At this time of vast changes in the delivery of health care, we are counting on you, the students, who will be the nurses of tomorrow, to make the necessary decisions of how to best serve the population of the earth. The early nursing could be. Perhaps all of us can learn from them.