Taking a closer look at Florence Nightingale
A new column in Cancer Nursing Today
The Lady With the Lamp. Florence Nightingale, long revered as the founder of modern nursing, has recently come under fire for a number of things, most notably inculcating rigid hierarchies, a culture of overwork, and sexism and racism in nursing. I’ve been mulling these claims for awhile now and decided to write two columns on Nightingale. The first discusses the toxic elements that persist in nursing culture. My next column will take up the issue of racism in nursing as it relates to Nightingale.
The first column begins below and continues on the Cancer Nursing Today website. If you’d like, read the column and return here to leave a comment.
Revisiting Florence Nightingale
As a new nurse I experienced a fair amount of bullying at my first job, which is not unusual. My preceptor at one point told me that the other nurses on the floor expected new nurses to be more submissive. She was trying to be helpful, but I didn’t take the hint. “I don’t do submissive,” I said. Six months later I transferred to a different floor where I could work and learn without belligerent co-workers making the job even harder than it already was.
This anecdote relates to Florence Nightingale in that I’ve lately come across criticisms of her that blame her, and her mythos as the “founder” of modern nursing, for the problems of rigid hierarchies in nursing, along with sexism and racism. This column will consider the strict behavior standards enforced by Nightingale, and an upcoming column will address racism in nursing as it bears on Nightingale. The 2 issues overlap, but teasing out the arguments separately reveals both as entrenched problems in nursing that connect with Nightingale, but also reflect the deeper problem of nursing’s ongoing inability to transcend such problematic behaviors.
Thanksgiving is tomorrow! It’s a hard time in the world right now, with lots to worry about. I’m looking forward to the holiday as a time to remember how lucky I am to know that everyone I love is safe and sound. Let me also take a moment to say how much I appreciate all of you, my readers. You enlighten me, make me think, and above all make me feel part of a community of people who really care about how we care for each other. Wishing you all the best of all possible holidays, however you celebrate it.
With hugs,
Theresa
A reasonable response. Nightingale's rules were an important step in raising standards for professional nursing, which was held in very low esteem (it was often a role filled by the completely untrained, with low or no sanitation practices) in mid-nineteenth-century England. But nearly three centuries later, it's up to us to see that these rules respond better to a changed situation.
It seems especially sad and ironic that in nursing this senseless and cruel rigidity is an extension of strictness that is a benefit in other areas. It is important to be strict about hygiene, handwashing, following safety procedures, checking and double-checking meds, etc. The problem comes when strictness starts to invade spheres where it has no business being. Forbidding certain hair and shoe colors?! Oof!
Similarly, it is so strange to me that some nurses demand submissiveness from new nurses, when nurses have rightly changed the hospital culture that had demanded they be submissive to doctors. You’d think they would engage in some self-reflection!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, Theresa!