THE PUBLIC HEALTH NURSE, THE PHYSICIAN'S ALLY

[摘要] When schools for nurses were established in 1879 at Bellevue, New Haven and Massachusetts General Hospitals, the nursing profession was finally recognized in America as an important adjunct to the medical profession. Prior to that time nursing care of the sick was largely in the hands of incompetent and untrained women who were not highly regarded by physicians or the laity. During the first decade after the three training schools were opened the majority of the trained nurses were engaged in private practice in homes, usually in the homes of the rich. Later some were employed as private duty nurses in hospitals.It was not until 1877 that the Women's Branch of the New York City Mission first sent trained visiting nurses into the homes of the sick poor to do bedside nursing; four years later the New York Ethical Society placed four nurses in the New York dispensaries to do not sick nursing but health nursing. The first visiting nurse association, founded for the purpose of sending trained nurses into homes, was started in Buffalo in 1885; and in 1886 similar associations were established in Boston and Philadelphia. Relatively few trained nurses devoted their energies to the public health field during the next two decades. However, private or non-official agencies interested in the control of tuberculosis, syphilis, acute communicable disease and maternal and child care played a strategic role in the development of professional public health nursing. These agencies, usually organized on a local basis, worked dosely with private

[学科分类] 儿科学