What can Florence and Mary teach us about nursing today?

I'm Elizabeth a Leon Wu and I'm a retired professor of Nursing I'm an emeritus professor of Nursing at the University of West London and also vice chairperson of the Mary Seacole memorial statue appeal as a result I'm often invited to talk to student nurses about Mary Seacole but I like to put it within the context of Nursing history particularly the relationship between Mary and Florence Nightingale but I've often been surprised that students don't know very much if anything about the history of Nursing people often ask me what why is Mary ccall so important I mean she was a nurse that died 130 years ago well I think her life and her contributions as well as those of Florence Nightingale can tell us a lot about nursing today and we really shouldn't forget where we've come from if we want to understand where we are today and also what our future might hold for us Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 in Florence family her parents were affluent upper middle-class and were doing the world tour when Florence was born in Italy I loved the fact that France nightingales father saw the value of education of his daughters in an era when that wasn't necessarily the case she was extremely well educated at home in both English history and particularly maths hence as we now know she was a very very good statistician Flats Nightingale stories are I find very fascinating she was from a very upper-middle class background she heard voices from God as a teenager calling her to be a nurse she faced absolute obstruction from her family in regards to this career move and she had incredible networks and determination so she did become a nurse so much so that the British government asked her to supervise the nursing services in the Crimean War at a time when the French were being complemented in terms of the nursing care of their soldiers by French nuns in contrast to the miserable treatment that British soldiers were receiving in the battlefield as we know Florence Nightingale is incredibly well recognized for her contributions to Nursing as she should be but equally important and now very well recognized is the contribution of Mary Seacole to the nursing profession Mary Seacole was born in 1805 in Jamaica of a creole jamaican mother who was a doctress and a hotel keeper and a Scottish military father and Mary in her autobiography always acknowledged the influence of both her mother and her father in where life subsequently took her she followed in her mother's footsteps as a doctress and used Creole medicines since using native Jamaican herbs for example to care for the sick she became very famous in the Caribbean for her care of victims of yellow fever and cholera both in Jamaica but also in Central America in Panama so much so that the British military authorities asked her to supervise the nursing services at their military camp in Kingston Jamaica part of Mary's work in Kingston Jamaica went contact with british military and naval officers and soldiers and staff as a result she heard about the outbreak of the war in the Crimea not only that she realized that many British soldiers that she knew in Jamaica were now already being sent out to the war zone and she felt with her knowledge of infectious diseases she could actually contribute a great deal to the nursing care of the soldiers so when she heard about the campaign to recruit nurses to support France Nightingale she decided off she'd go to England and offer her services Fross Nightingale had already set out with her first group of nurses what shocked Mary was she was rejected five times in her offer to go out and nurse the soldiers in the Crimean War even though she was armed with glowing references from senior medical personnel this was a very difficult time for Mary and one of the lessons for me is that she overcame this adversity and actually used her entrepreneurial skills found the money and paid for her own passage to go out to Turkey to get to the Crimea an interesting point for something like myself an older woman is that Mary Seacole was 49 when she went out to the Crimea I don't think many people realize that I find it very interesting to look at the similarities between Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole for a start both were very very strong-minded women they were intelligent and they were compassionate in the Crimean War the British soldiers called them both mother which highlights their maternal instinct but both also were very very determined women who when they encountered barriers overcame them maybe in different ways but they were very very strong both Mary and Florence were incredibly good at networking Florence with her connections in the government and Mary using her connections in the military from generals downwards both women overcame hurdles Florence on the grounds of gender and Mary on the grounds possibly of gender but also of race but they both overcame those obstacles and here we can looking at similarities of the strategies they may have used to do so Florence used her writing skills to lobby on behalf of what she wanted but Scutari in the Crimea Mary used her entrepreneurial assets to get cross to the Crimea regardless of the fact that she did not get any support in London as a nurse what delights me about Mary and Florence is their commitment to what we call holistic nursing care now in the writings of both we can see the importance they have for sanitation for nutrition but also caring for soldiers at a time of illness at a time of dying what's really good is that there is written documentation about Florence and Mary's beliefs in nursing practice for example for us nightingales notes on nursing and Mary Seacole autobiography but there's also one person who wrote about both of them and that was Sir William Howard Russell the war correspondent of The Times who beautifully describes the commitment of both to improving nursing care there are some fascinating differences though between Florence and Mary Florence was a very disciplined puritanical woman who was very controlling but that was because she was desperate to get all this work done to improve the hospital organization and nursing care on the other hand Mary was more laid back down to earth great sense of humor and supplied alcohol in the British hotel at the same time as she offered nursing services and this is where there's a little bit of tension emerges between Florence and Mary as we can see from the writings Marian Florence first met in the Crimea they were aware of each other's practices but there are mixed messages about how Florence felt about Mary on one hand she acknowledged Mary's nursing commitment to the soldiers but on the other hand she was very unhappy about Mary running a hotel that she considered a bad house where there was alcohol flowing in contrast Mary highly respected Florence and this is demonstrated in her autobiography if we look at the differences between Florence and Mary one is finance is Florence from a rich upper middle-class family sponsored by the government the Secretary of State at war was a friend of hers so all her costs were covered in contrast Mary had to be self-sufficient there's a good job that she was a businesswoman because that's how she funded herself but when the Crimean War ended very suddenly Mary ended up bankrupt Florence Nightingale is recognized for transforming nursing and professionalizing it she wrote the rules Mary on the other hand when she thought it was necessary threw away the rulebook but in a very positive way so for example she Mary knew she wasn't supposed to go onto the battlefield but as far as she was concerned that's where the soldiers needed nursing so armed with her basket of bandages and Creole medicine despite the soldiers say mother cecal don't your life is in danger she went to where the soldiers needed her care an important difference between the two nurses is that florence Nightingale's contribution to nursing is recorded in history whereas Mary's was overlooked we recognize Florence's contribution in terms of hospital administration but Mary contributed in a different way one could argue it was more bedside nursing but also as a military nurse as well and Mary also is recognized as somebody who didn't allow discrimination to bear her down and that's that has a relevance for nurses today whether they feel rejected on the grounds of class gender sexual orientation or race have to remember Mary Seacole was a black older woman who overcame all sorts of obstructions to get out there and nurse whilst there's a lot of positives in nursing today we are facing some very grave issues and I think we can learn something from both Florence and Mary we look at the scandals affecting the nursing profession here's where Florence's rules regulations professionalization and ethics come into play Florence would be lobbying about it she'll be using her networks she wouldn't be scared to confront the challenges that we're facing many nurses face rejection and discrimination for a variety of reasons and this is where Mary's experience comes into play Mary refused to allow barriers to overcome her and stuck to her principles of holistic nursing care and to sum it up both Florence and Mary always remembered the patient both nurses were extremely angry at times about evidence of poor nursing care Florence used her pen to lobby her networks to improve the nursing care at Scutari we have examples of Mary both in Central America and in the Crimea of realizing if there was a gap in the nursing care she was prepared to get stuck in was a cholera epidemic the health professionals fled the scene in Panama she went in rolled her sleeves are organized the nursing care in that gold prospecting town in the Crimea Mary realized that nursing care was needed closer to the battle front than in Scutari so she went off and organized a British hotel that included nursing care for me the upper-middle-class white English Florence Nightingale and the Jamaican nurse of Mary Seacole although from different backgrounds have actually left very important legacies for nursing today what they've shown for example is that they both had anger they were angry and that anger at poor nursing care drove them to do something about it Florence using her networks lobbied using the power of the pen mary rolling up her sleeves and getting on with it the other aspect is that there were both very determined they wouldn't allow any hurdles to stop them in their tracks be its doctors being awkward with Florence Nightingale or Mary being rejected to go out a nurse in the Crimean War and finally both of them use their brains and their minds to use their initiative they never waited to be told what to do they used their own intelligent and got on with it you

Channel: undefined

Views: 23,539

Rating: 4.1063828 out of 5

Keywords: Nursing, Professor Elizabeth Anionwu, Mary Seacole, Florence Nightingale, Nursing Standard, health

Id: r9LVDwnRk2A

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 10 2011