Reflective Journal Week 3 - Nursing Across the Ages

1. What I learned

I was really enlightened this week. I really loved the things I learned from my teammates in our historical discussion. The first thing I learned was how much nurses were paid in comparison to surgeons in the time period we covered this week. Nurses were paid 8 dollars a month and surgeons were paid 40 dollars a month. I looked up the average salaries of these professions today and I found that the ratios are about the same! This was surprising to me, because nursing has changed a lot since then. Of course, nurses shouldn’t be paid as much as a surgeon, but I would assume the pay gap would decrease at least a little bit. I am surprised, because in this time period, nurses didn’t require formal training and did very simple tasks. They often assigned prisoners to be nurses. Today, nurses require a lot of training and education. You would think that the pay would increase since the profession has changed so much since then.

The next thing I learned from one of my teammates is about yellow fever. It was reported that 50,000 people died from it. That surprised me, because it seems so small compared to how many people died of Covid, and yellow fever seems more serious to me than covid. I thought that was very interesting!

I learned a lot of interesting things from my own article as well. My article describes what nursing was in the 17th-18th centuries. It looked at the challenges it faced in becoming a profession. The article taught me some surprising things about nurses! In this time period, nursing wasn’t a profession. A nurse was just a word to describe the women when caring for the sick in their family. A nursemaid was a woman who cared for children. Nurses weren’t paid as nursing was seen as women’s selfless sacrifice of service to others. I found it interesting that most nursing was done in the home, and most people tried to avoid the hospital at all costs. Sometimes, nursing roles were done by inmates (prisoners)! Nurses didn’t have to have training.

2. How I will utilize the information I learned in my nursing practice

When I read about the name nurse first being used to describe the woman in the family responsible for caring for the sick in her family, and that nursing was considered “A woman’s self-sacrificing service to others”, it made me really proud that I chose this profession! I never wanted to have to work. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom and have lots of babies. Unfortunately, 2 incomes seem to be a necessity for many families now, including mine. I’m glad I chose a career that is related to my number one passion of being a mom. What I learned from this article is that nursing started in the home, caring for loved ones. This knowledge reminds me to treat every patient as if I were caring for my own family. Also, to try to make them as comfortable as if they were in their own home. I think this knowledge will help me to be a great nurse. 

3.  My personal feelings about the time period covered

I was very surprised at this time period. I thought it was crazy how physicians and nurses didn’t need formal training. It was interesting to me that schools weren’t super organized yet. What I love about this time period is the traditional roles of the women. I love that they were responsible to care for the sick in their family. I love the dynamic of passing down your health care knowledge to your daughters and granddaughters. I think its one way families are more connected then than they are now.