Fundamentals of Nursing Q 51

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In the United States, the first programs for training nurses were affiliated with:

  

     A. The military

     B. General hospitals

     C. Civil service

     D. Religious orders

    

    

Correct Answer: D. Religious orders

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When the Civil War broke out, the Army used nurses who had already been trained in religious orders. Nursing started with religious orders. The Hindu faith was the first to write about nursing. In the United States, all training for nurses was affiliated with religious orders until after the Civil War.

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Option A: Although the Army did provide some training, it occurred later than in the religious orders. Most people think of the nursing profession as beginning with the work of Florence Nightingale, an upper class British woman who captured the public imagination when she led a group of female nurses to the Crimea in October of 1854 to deliver nursing service to British soldiers.

Option B: Although nurses were trained in hospitals, the training and the hospitals were affiliated with religious orders. Upon her return to England, Nightingale successfully established nurse education programs in a number of British hospitals. These schools were organized around a specific set of ideas about how nurses should be educated, developed by Nightingale often referred to as the “Nightingale Principles.”

Option C: Civil service was not mentioned in Chapter 1 and was not a factor in the early 1800s. While Nightingale’s work was groundbreaking in that she confirmed that a corps of educated women, informed about health and the ways to promote it, could improve the care of patients based on a set of particular principles, she was not the first to put these principles into action.

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