Florence Nightingale founded the world’s first regular nurse school in London in 1860 and wrote more than 200 books and scientific papers in his lifetime. She was also the first female member to be elected to the Royal Statistical Society. During the Crimean War, she took care of the British army’s injuries and revealed that the main reason for the British army’s death during the war was infection caused by improper care of the soldiers after injury. In the statistics of various causes of death, Nightingale used a pie chart to visually display the data that the public could not feel through the text, and thus made a huge contribution to statistics.
If Nightingale came to the age of our lives, she might be a little disappointed by the unfair evaluation of this profession.
The World Health Organization announced 2020 as the International Year of Nurses and Midwives to commemorate the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing and medical careers. And if this pioneer of nursing career lives in today’s era, she should be pleased with this career that began in the 19th century and continues to flourish, and will also see the changes it faces.
| Professional |
Many people still think that the nature of the profession of nurses is the same as what we have seen in hospitals, and they are always doing mechanical work repeatedly. It can be said that people’s impression of nurses is still in the Nightingale era. But in fact, many people do not understand that nurses, like doctors, also need to have a systematic grasp of clinical expertise. They need to understand professional knowledge such as neurology, cardiology and emergency medicine, and some even need to be involved in forensic medicine.
Looking forward to the future development of this profession, nurses will increasingly have to complete some traditionally doctor-owned tasks, including scheduled care and treatment of chronic diseases. For example, in the United States, nearly two-thirds of surgical anesthesia will be handled by nurses. In the United Kingdom, they are responsible for some abdominal, orthopedic and cardiac surgical operations. In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, some nurses receive specialized training to directly perform caesarean section on pregnant women in emergency situations and reach the level of professional doctors.
| Alternative GP |
Nursing workers will gradually replace general practitioners and are responsible for the treatment of patients with diabetes and other chronic diseases that require lifestyle changes. The role of nurses is particularly important in the field of nursing that needs to take into account the personal health of the patient, because they usually gain the trust of the patient. University professor Brian Dolan once said: “Patients regard the profession of doctors as too sacred and authoritative, and they are inevitably too cautious in getting along with each other, but they can open their hearts to the nurses.” In a survey on the degree of trust gained by different types of work Among them, the profession of nurse has always ranked first in the list.
However, if Nightingale comes to the age of our lives, he may be a little disappointed by the unfair evaluation of this profession. In countries such as India, Germany, and Portugal, nurses are often regarded as assistants living under doctors, and do not even have the right to diagnose common diseases and prescribe drugs. But in fact, nurses account for nearly half of the medical staff in the world today, and they are responsible for most of the work of communicating with patients. But they have little say in various important strategic decisions in the medical community. Even the World Health Organization did not set up the position of “Chief Nurse Administrator” until 2018.
Another fact that may make Nightingale frown is that the profession of nurse has lost the aura of the past. Nowadays, the recruitment of nursing staff is also a big problem. It can be said that it is the profession with the biggest gap at present. In the next ten years, the vacancy of nursing staff will become the most difficult problem affecting the world’s medicine. It is estimated that from now until 2030, the world will face a vacancy of 7.6 million nurse positions, accounting for 1/3 of the current total number of nurses in the world.
| Stimulate Will |
In order to reverse the situation, the relevant departments have adopted a series of measures to stimulate people’s willingness to engage in nursing work, to avoid the departure of active nurses. Some countries are planning to change the scope of nurse recruitment from foreign to local, because nurses recruited in the past often come from poor countries that lack nursing resources themselves. The media community is also contributing to this: removing the obsolete and outdated image of nurses in people’s hearts, and making this profession more known, understood, and even loved by the public. For example, Singapore has produced some TV series and documentaries related to the profession of nurses, and other countries also intend to follow suit.
More hospitals and medical institutions will consider increasing nurses’ business training programs, and there are more and more voices to support nursing workers to carry out more practical operations. New technological methods will also be used to make nurses work more efficiently and effectively reduce occupational fatigue. People will use some algorithms to draw out the most efficient way of care. With the continuous improvement of diagnostic systems and the development of surgical robot technology, many treatment procedures will be able to be directly completed by artificial intelligence, but the changing situation and the need for meticulous nursing work are not feasible, so nurses may become the only medical field in the future Types of work that still require manual operation.
From the time of Nightingale to today, with the continuous innovation of science and technology, the profession of nurse has changed a lot, and will continue to face changes in the future. But there is one thing that will not change-the powerful power it has to save lives is always deeply rooted in people’s hearts.