Florence Nightingale - Nursing Pioneer

Florence Nightingale spent her life in service to the sick and the wounded. Born into an affluent family, she rejected the usual path that upper class Victorian women took at that time and followed her own heart. Along the way, she reinvented the role of nurses in society and brought to light necessary changes toward the organization of a successful army hospital. Florence Nightingale led a life of significance, but not without enduring a war and sufferings of her own.

In the year 1820, Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy. In fact, according to, The Life of Florence Nightingale, she was named after the city. During her childhood, she was able to travel and receive a well-rounded education due to the wealth of her family. The aforementioned article goes on to reveal that Florence realized early on that she would not be satisfied in the expected role of a wife in upper class society. She longed for more fulfilling pursuits. Visit Nurse Florence Nightingale and you'll learn that against her family's advice, she made the decision to become a nurse. Nurses were not particularly valued at that time in history, but Florence persisted. She travelled to Germany and studied nursing at the Kaiserworth School. The article goes on to describe how her time spent as superintendent of an institution for women stirred her interest in hospital management. The more experience she garnered in hospitals, the more the ideas swirled around in her mind as to how to improve the care given to patients.

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