Having the knowledge of the foundations and history of nursing provides a context in which nurses understand current practice because it helps us understand how nursing even came to be. Realizing all the struggles, problems and challenges many significant people such as St Benedict to Florence Nightingale to Mildred Montag faced helps provide an understanding in how they contributed in shaping nursing as a Profession today.
As early as 250 BC, St. Benedict initiated the Benedictine Nursing Order. With this initiated the beginning of nursing education which set the basis of importance of knowledge. Then there is Dorothea Lynde Dix who in the early nineteenth century witnessed how many the mentally ill and orphans lived in such shocking living conditions. Because of all her efforts in convincing those of authority the need for better care and facilities in which the ill are cared for resulted in the first hospital being built in Trenton, New Jersey. Then of course the infamous Florence Nightingale, the founding mother of modern nursing. Her work further assisted in improving the many things that others fought for such as education, improving the sanitary conditions of where people are treated. Her research and writing instated the importance of understanding disease and its relation to morality rates.
These trends have helped influence my perspective of nursing practice in that it gives me the understanding of how important nursing education is and that there is always something new to learn. That is why as nurses we continue to take class and need to renew certification because medicine is always changing. There is much research being done that help shape nursing practice today. We continue to build on and improve nursing from what is was in the past. Together, the countless hard work from all these significant people provides an understanding why