The profession of nursing has come a long way in the past century. In the 1880s nurses had a reputation as being “drunken, dishonest, and disreputable” (Hoyt, 2010); today, Americans rank nursing as the most ethical profession in the field of health care (Hoyt, 2010). Florence Nightingale was single-handedly responsible for changing not just the way nursing is conducted, but also changing public perception of the nursing profession. In the years since Nightingale established nursing as a serious and legitimate profession, many theories have been developed that continue to codify and define what nursing is and how nurses can best serve their patients. At the core of all these theories remains the most important concept Nightingale established: nurses must have a “single eye to the patient’s good” (Hoyt, 2010).
The foundational paradigm of Nightingale’s approach to nursing was strict adherence to a code of ethics. Nightingale insisted that her students be “sober and truthful” (Hoyt, 2010) and that they treat patients in an ethical manner. Nightingale instructed her students to treat patients with honesty, and to give them truthful and accurate information about the nature of their conditions. Nightingale believed it was important to be honest with patients about their conditions, and to not give them false hope when their situation was in fact dire (Andrist et al, 2006). In this way, she believed, patients were able to make the best decisions for themselves about the nature of their care and how they should deal with their