Florence Nightingale: The Lady with the Lamp

This article provides an overview of Florence Nightingale's life and her contributions to modern nursing. It discusses her efforts during the Crimean war, her establishment of the Nightingale Training School, and her focus on improving sanitary conditions in hospitals.

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Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale: The lady with the lamp, was born in Italy on May 12, 1820. She
was considered as a legend during her phase of lifetime and was one of the very few famous
personalities in the British antiquity. Her efforts and dedication during the outbreak of war in
Crimean has established high standards in the field of modern nursing (Nam.ac.uk, 2019).
She devoted her life in improving the sanitary condition of the people in civilian and military
hospitals. She had also established a training school for nurses named as Nightingale Training
School.
Answer 1:
From the age of 16, Florence Nightingale wanted to take nursing as her profession as she
was actively involved in philanthropy and management of poor and ill people, but her parents
were not pleased with her thought of becoming a nurse (The National Archives, 2019). In
Victorian Era, it was expected from a young woman like Florence Nightingale’s social stature
to get married and should not work. Florence Nightingale had to struggle and overcome this
social barrier or pressure from her family. During Crimean war, more than 18,000 soldiers
were admitted to military hospitals and due to the bad reputation of female nurses in the past
it was difficult for Florence Nightingale to get stationed in the hospitals to take care for the
injured soldiers (Karimi & Alavi, 2015). The healthcare office at the Crimean war were
avoiding to hire any female nurse as the male doctors considered her ideas as a threat towards
their professionalism but Florence Nightingale made her way and was hired to take care of
the injured soldiers.

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Answer 2:
Florence Nightingale had made some remarkable contributions in modern nursing and her
most well-known contribution was in the Crimean war, where nightingale with her 34 other
volunteer nurses were involved in taking care of the injured soldiers. They improved the
sanitary and medical arrangements for the soldiers and the death rate was declined by 2/3rd of
the initial death count. She was credited as the founder of modern civilised nursing (Florence
Nightingale, 2019). Another major contribution by Florence Nightingale was in refining the
sanitary conditions in the hospital in order to improve the quality of care and treatment. She
established and improved the kitchen where sufficient dietary food was cooked for the
patient, developed laundry to improve the cleanness and hygiene of the patient, and
establishment of classroom for the intellectual amusement and stimulation of the patient
(Pirani, 2016).
Answer 3:
Such precious contribution of Florence Nightingale have established an improved and
high standard of nursing practice and strategies in the modern era. On basis of her
observation she wrote a report on problems affecting the efficiency, health and hospital
management of the British Army (Strickler, 2017). Her focus was on improving the sanitary
condition of the hospitals so that a clean and hygienic environment would assist in fast
recovery if the patients. She ran a training school where she would train nurses with effective
care practice ideas. She published different books, which positioned the base of contemporary
nursing practice. Her nursing care strategies focusing on the health sanitation and hygiene
have helped the modern nurses as a standard of nursing practice and is followed world-wide
(McDonald, 2016)
.

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References
Florence Nightingale. (2019). Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). Retrieved from http://www-
history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Nightingale.html
Karimi, H., & Alavi, N. M. (2015). Florence Nightingale: The mother of nursing. Nursing
and midwifery studies, 4(2).
McDonald, L. (2016). Florence Nightingale: Statistics to save lives. International Journal of
Statistics and Probability, 5(1), 28-35.
Nam.ac.uk. (2019). Florence Nightingale: The Lady with the Lamp | National Army
Museum. Retrieved from https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/florence-nightingale-lady-
lamp
Pirani, S. A. (2016). Application of Nightingale’s theory in nursing practice. Annals of
Nursing and Practice, 3(1), 1040.
Strickler, J. (2017). Florence Nightingale: Lighting the way for the future of nursing.
Nursing2018, 47(12), 43-45.
The National Archives. (2019). Florence Nightingale - The National Archives. Retrieved
from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/florence-nightingale/