Biography and Application of Florence Nightingale's Nursing Theory

Running Head: NIGHTINGALE
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Florence Nightingale
student
7/30/2019

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................... 2
Biography of Florence Nightingale................................................................................. 2
Early life................................................................................................................. 2
Career................................................................................................................... 2
Later life................................................................................................................. 5
Death.................................................................................................................... 5
Nursing theory and its application (reflection)..................................................................5
Application in my nursing practice.................................................................................7
Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 8
References................................................................................................................. 10

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Introduction
Nurses have always been the core member of healthcare team; they provide and
monitor the patient care in different health care settings. The origin of nursing exists
before the mid19th century. The history of this profession conventionally begins with
Florence Nightingale, who was the well-educated member of a wealthy family. She has
decided to become a nurse in an era where nursing was not seen as a respectable job
for women. She was a strong woman who motivated other nurses too (Cook, 2018). In
this particular report the biography and the application of Nightingale’s theory will be
discussed.
Biography of Florence Nightingale
Early life
Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy. She was also
famous as the lady-with-the-lamp, her father William E. Nightingale was a wealthy
landowner of England. Her mother Frances Nightingale hailed from the merchant family
and took superiority in socializing with individuals of noticeable social standing.
Nightingale was tutored by her father in different languages, mathematics, and history;
however she was attracted to social life and marriage, from the beginning she wanted to
gain independence, and freedom in different areas of activity as well as social services
for the obedience of God (Malpas, 2019).

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Career
In the year of 1844, she decided to work in a hospital, although her family
strongly objected the idea, but she ignored all the objection or resistance and managed
to visit different hospital and healthcare facilities. The condition of the hospitals at that
was terrible and nurses had improper training and low morals. Nightingale was aware of
these issues and she decided to spend some time in Kaiserworth nursing training
school, Germany. In 1850, she returned to England and in 1853 she was promoted as
superintendent in the London based charity supported healthcare setting, this allowed
her to live independently form the family (Karimi & Alavi, 2015). Later, the Crimean war
started in October 1853, and the British Territory was at war counter to the Russian.
Many soldiers were moved to the black sea, and nearly 18,000 soldiers were admitted
to the military healthcare settings, in 1854.
In late 1854 Nightingale was asked by the war secretary to establish the nursing
team to provide care to the sick and injured soldiers. She responded to the letter and
assembled a team of around 24 nurses and reached to the Scutari, where they
observed that the hospital sat on the topmost of large open drain, which infected the
water and even the hospital building (Cook, 2018). Nightingale and her team quickly
created 100s of scrub brushes and they asked the least sick patient to clean the floor
and ceiling of the hospital. She spent most of her time with the patient, and the patient
used to call her “the angel of the Crimea”. Florence used a holistic approach for the
wellbeing of soldiers, a method she followed later in her life. She observed that the
soldiers admitted in the hospital were fed badly; therefore she used money produced by
newspaper advertising for her nursing work to purchase better food for soldiers. In