GAIL DRAKE: Honoring the lady with the lamp

Blessed are the merciful. Matthew 5:7

“The wounded from the battle-plain

In dreary hospitals of pain,

The cheerless corridors,

The cold and stony floors,

Lo! In that house of misery,

A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom

And flit from room to room ….”

Who was this legendary lady forever immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem? The mother of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, whose birthday, May 12, is celebrated as International Nurses Day. As the proud mom of a pediatric nurse and a nurse-to-be, it was a delight to learn more about this pioneer who made choices that benefited thousands for decades.

Nightingale was born in 1820 into a wealthy British family while on their family travels in Italy. The family’s daughters were named after the cities of their birth. Nightingale’s father educated his daughters with a liberal arts education including several languages, math and science. The family resided in wealthy estates..

In February 1837, Florence Nightingale experienced the first of several experiences during which she felt called by God to devote her life to serving others. In her youth, Florence had respected her parents’ wishes but later announced her desire to pursue a career in nursing, a work typically performed by uneducated servants. Young women of her social standing were expected to marry brilliantly and bear noble babies. Florence was too focused on her calling to bother with suitors – and there were many of them.

She travelled through Europe again in 1850, where she met several lifelong friends and colleagues. She traveled as far as Egypt, where she wrote in her diary, “God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for him alone without reputation.” In Germany, she met Lutheran Pastor Theodor Fliedner, who conducted work with the sick, and there she received four months of medical training. She wrote and published about her experiences anonymously, the first of more than 200 writings. In August 1853, she took a post at a medical facility for “sick gentlewomen” in London.

The Crimean War broke out in 1854, with England and France warring against Russia. News arrived of the deplorable conditions for the soldiers near Constantinople in modern Turkey. Nightingale was appointed to lead a team of 39 nurses along with 15 Catholic nuns. The hospital conditions were horrific, with a death rate of 42%. Medicine was scarce; the wounded laid on the floor on hay, filled with feces, with poor hygiene and no equipment to process food for the patients. During her first winter, more than 4,000 soldiers died. Nightingale concluded that most soldiers died of neglect instead of their wounds.

An innovative mathematician, Nightingale kept records and presented her data in graphic forms called polar area diagrams, similar to pie charts but with equally wide wedges that measure by the distance from the center. These statistical diagrams are still used today.

After she published a letter to The Times, the British government sent funds and a prefabricated hospital. She insisted on improving hygiene, implementing hand-washing, scrubbing the buildings, had the sewers repaired and improved ventilation. She gained a reputation for her midnight rounds through the hospital wards. The death rate dropped to 2%.

Nightingale returned from Crimea a hero and raised funds to establish the first nursing school, the Nightingale Training School. In 1859, she wrote “Notes on Nursing,” a curriculum for at-home nursing. Her book also was sold to the general public to promote “the simple rules of health [that] were only beginning to be known.” The book is still considered a classic on nursing. Her greatest achievement was elevating the nursing profession as well as bringing trained nurses into the system for the common poor in Britain.

All nurses today graduate upon taking the Nightingale Pledge: “I pledge to care for all my patients with all the knowledge, skills and compassion that I possess, to uphold the standards of my profession, and to safeguard patient confidentiality.”

We celebrate International Nurses Day in gratitude to all nurses who selflessly serve, with the standards set by the founder of modern nursing.