Evolution of Nursing Care

Nursing as a profession has changed over the years. Being a nurse in the 1900s as compared to nursing as it is today is enlightening to say the least. Education was next to nothing and acquired in a hospital operating room. The working environment and the duties of the nurse were much different; they performed duties that nurses today have never attempted. Nursing began to change during WWII for the better and now has advanced into a profession. The role of nursing in the early 1900s was performed in hospitals as superintendents’, and as private duty nurses and consisted of “sterilizing equipment and administering leeches. Morgan, 1998)” They also boiled water to sterilize needles, sutures and kept equipment sanitary. In the mid 1900s, nurses sharpened needles on an average of two days a week. They earned approximately 50 cents an hour, while working 10-12 hour shifts on an average of seven days a week. The work that was performed was also their training as a nursing student, which was a training course that lasted 4-6 weeks and was learned in a hospital surgery room.Evolution of Nursing Care Example Paper