Activity is moving along in CA regarding progress towards implementing the recommendations in the IOM's report on the Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. The California Institute for Nursing & Health Care (CINHC) has become the structural home for the CA Action Coalition - similiar to the model at the national level in which AARP houses the Center to Champion Nursing in America which is leading the campaign at the national level. This change will hopefully strengthen the work ...

Our National Day of Dialogue about the nursing education recommendations contained in the Institute of Medicine/Robert Wood Foundation's landmark report is only 1 week away. The discussion will be lively as our panelists engage in dialogue about requirements for educating nurses in the immediate future. This will not be an esoteric discussion, but rather will be focused on the practical issues and strategies needing to be addressed as part of the implementation process associated with the recommendation ...

As I leave Istanbul and reflect over these past few days of following in Florence Nightingale's footsteps, several thoughts are shirling through my head. Not the least of these is the significant extent to which Miss Nightingale's early life growing up in a well-to-do family with a father who spent a great deal of time directing and participating in her education, had on her throughout her life. It was certainly unusual in the early to mid 1800's for a young woman to possess the education that ...

Nightingale Tour July 18

It took Florence Nightingale a little more than two weeks to travel from England to Constantinople (Istanbul) when she made her voyage to care for soldiers from the war in the Crimea in 1854. It took me just 3 & 1/2 hours by air to arrive in the same place - though what a difference in the place where she and I landed. When she arrived, there was little on the Asian side of the Bosphorous River other than the barracks, which had been turned into a hospital ...

Nightingale Tour July 16

I remain in awe of Florence Nightingale and all she was able to accomplish under some very challenging conditions. As a victorian woman of means, she was expected to make a "good marriage" in order to secure her future, but of course, we know that Miss Nightingale had other ideas. It was highly unusual for a woman to go to work, yet that is exactly what Florence Nightingale did, and in so doing she may very well have created options for other women ...

Nightingale Tour, July 15

As I sit here at Embley Park on the fifth day of my amazing journey in the Footsteps of Florence Nightingale, I've taken a moment to reflect on how I arrived at this remarkable place. It all started with a conversation with a colleague in Michigan at the Michigan Center for Nursing, Carol Stacy, RN, MS, who was coordinating a trip to England to commemorate the centenary of Florence Nightingale's passing. She had been in discussions with Dr. Louise Selanders, ...

July 14 Nightingale Study Tour

I'm guessing there are nurses who are unaware of the impact Florence Nightingale has had on our lives as we know them today, and not too many years ago I would have been among them. I guess you could say I'm a convert to appreciating the importance of Miss Nightingale in our lives - not just as nurses but as citizens. One of her earliest roles of huge significance was as a designer and space planner for hospitals. Prior to Miss Nightingale's work ...

July 12, 2010

Yesterday was an amazing "Florence Nightingale" Day. We started with time in the Gordon Museum, located in Guy's Hospital, which houses the world's oldest pathology specimens used continuously for teaching healthcare students. It contains wax models that were created in the mid 1700s and have been in use ever since. It was an amazing place and a special treat to be able to see it while students were using it as they prepared for final exams. We then went ...