Honoring Nursing’s Past, Crafting a Vision for the Future

Helga Martins
Pos-doctoral Fellow at Integral Human Development Program, PhD, RN, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Doctoral School (CADOS). Faculty of Health Sciences and Nursing, Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Health, Lisbon, Portugal.
Instituto Politécnico de Beja, Escola Superior de Saúde. R. Dr. José Correia Maltez, 7800-111 Beja, Portugal.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5804-7934
E-mail: hemartins@ucp.pt

Honoring Nursing’s Past, Crafting a Vision for the Future

The professionalization of nursing is greatly indebted to Florence Nightingale, she was the founder of modern nursing and her legacy speaks for itself. In the Crimean war she implemented several care recommendations, namely, hygiene rules, such as airing and cleaning the hospital rooms, bathing patients, changing dressings regularly and preparing healthy food for the ill patients. These measures resulted in significant improvements in patient outcomes within a short period.

Figure:https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/florence-nightingale-heroina-hospitales_14173

We also need to honor other nursing theorists who were influential in the development of nursing as a science, namely, Wanda Horta, Dorothea Orem, Callista Roy, Nancy Roper, Virginia Anderson, Martha E. Rodgers, Jean Watson, Madeleine Leininger and Afaf Meleis, among others.

In Portugal there were decisive milestones for nursing (Silvestre, 2009):

• Decree No. 30,447, of June 17, 1940, published by the then Ministry of National Education, created the Technical School of Nurses of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology
• In 1967, Decree-Law 48,166 of December 27, 1967 was published, which structured the career into three careers: public health, hospital and teaching.
• In 1973 Nursing Schools were opened in all districts of the country, except Setúbal and Aveiro
• In 1981, Decree-Law 305/81 was published, a Nursing Career diploma that established a single career for all nurses and defined five professional categories
• The first master’s degrees in Nursing Sciences began in 1992
• In 1998, on April 21st, Decree-Law No. 104/98 was a diploma that allowed the creation of the Order of Nurses.
• In 1999, the Nursing degree course was created (Decree-Law No. 353/99, of September 3)
• Abel Paiva was the first nurse who completed his PhD in Nursing Sciences in 2002 from the University of Porto Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar

Currently, the nurses have more and more, prominent role in healthcare, always focused on clinical reasoning, patient-centered care and evidence-based practice. These are the fundamental pillars in nursing regarding clinical practice.

Worldwide, Nurses’ Day is celebrated on May 12th, Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This year, International Council of Nurses (ICN) on International Nurses’ Day 2024 was celebrated under the theme: Our Nurses. Our Future. ICN (2024) says the economic power of care, particularly in nursing, represents a crucial but frequently undervalued component of the healthcare system. In addition, the strategic investment in nursing not only improves patient outcomes but also delivers considerable economic and societal benefits (ICN, 2024).

Figure:https://www.icn.ch/news/international-nurses-day-2024-theme-announced-our-nurses-our-future-economic-power-care

Nursing presents several challenges in the future, in particular, in a demographically increasingly aging population, in which the determining role of nurses is vital in gerontology and also in the management of chronic diseases. According to the World Health Organization (2022) “between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world’s population over 60 years will nearly double from 12% to 22%”. The literature highpoint that nurses have been leaders in elder care, are expected to play increasingly vital roles in addressing the challenges associated with aging populations in the coming decades. (Grady, 2011). Another challenge lies in integrating the digital transformation of the healthcare organizations into nursing care, with the aim of enhancing process efficiency while maintaining a humanistic approach to patient and families in clinical practice.

References

Grady, P. A. (2011). Advancing the health of our aging population: A lead role for nursing science. Nursing Outlook, 59(4), 207–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2011.05.017

International Council of Nurses. (2024). International Nurses Day 2024 theme announced! Our Nurses. Our Future. The economic power of care. Available: https://www.icn.ch/news/international-nurses-day-2024-theme-announced-our-nurses-our-future-economic-power-care

Silvestre, M. (2009). Brief history of the teaching of nursing in Portugal, from century XIX to XXI. Revista de Enfermagem UFPE on line, 3(2), 732-40. https://doi.org/10.5205/reuol.149-181-1-RV.030320093

World Health Organization. (2022). Ageing and health. Avialable on: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health

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