Nursing Nursingis a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals families and communities so they may attain maintain or recover optimal health and quality of life They also take on vital roles of education assessing situations as support 1 Nurses may be differentiated from other health care providers by their approach to patient care training and scope of practice Nurses practice in many specialties with differing levels of prescription authority Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments 2 3 but there is evidence of international shortages of qualified nurses 4 Many nurses provide care within the ordering scope of physicians and this traditional role has shaped the public image of nurses as care providers Nurse practitioners are nurses with a graduate degree in advanced practice nursing They are however permitted by most jurisdictions to practice independently in a variety of settings Since the postwar period nurse education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials and many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are changing 5 6 Nurses develop a plan of care working collaboratively with physicians therapists the patient the patient s family and other team members that focuses on treating illness to improve quality of life In the United Kingdom and the United States clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners diagnose health problems and prescribe the correct medications and other therapies depending on particular state regulations 7 Nurses may help coordinate the patient care performed by other members of a multidisciplinary health care team such as therapists medical practitioners and dietitians Nurses provide care both interdependently for example with physicians and independently as nursing professionals In addition to providing care and support nurses educate the public and promote health and wellness 8 History Traditional Nursing historians face the challenge of determining whether care provided to the sick or injured in antiquity is called nursing care 9 In the fifth century BC for example the Hippocratic Collection in places describes skilled care and observation of patients by male attendants who may have been early nurses 10 Around 600 BC in India it is recorded in Sushruta Samhita Book 3 Chapter V about the role of the nurse as the different parts or members of the body as mentioned before including the skin cannot be correctly described by one who is not well versed in anatomy Hence any one desirous of acquiring a thorough knowledge of anatomy should prepare a dead body and carefully observe by dissecting it and examine its different parts Before the foundation of modern nursing members of religious orders such as nuns and monks often provided nursing like care 11 Examples exist in Christian 12 Islamic 13 and Buddhist 14 traditions amongst others Phoebe mentioned in Romans 16 has been described in many sources as the first visiting nurse 15 16 These traditions were influential in the development of the ethos of modern nursing The religious roots of modern nursing remain in evidence today in many countries One example in the United Kingdom is the use of the historical title sister to refer to a senior nurse in the past 17 During the Reformation of the 16th century Protestant reformers shut down the monasteries and convents allowing a few hundred municipal hospices to remain in operation in northern Europe Those nuns who had been serving as nurses were given pensions or told to get married and stay home 18 Nursing care went to the inexperienced as traditional caretakers rooted in the Roman Catholic Church were removed from their positions The nursing profession suffered a major setback for approximately 200 years 19 19th century During the Crimean War the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna issued the call for women to join the Order of Exaltation of the Cross Krestodvizhenskaya obshchina for the year of service in the military hospitals The first section of twenty eight sisters headed by Aleksandra Petrovna Stakhovich the Directress of the Order went off to the Crimea early in November 1854 20 Florence Nightingale laid the foundations of professional nursing after the Crimean War 22 Nightingale believed that nursing was a social freedom and mission for women She believed that any educated woman can help improve the care of the medically sick 23 Her Notes on Nursing 1859 became popular The Nightingale model of professional education having set up one of the first school of nursing that is connected to a continuously operating hospital and medical school spread widely in Europe and North America after 1870 24 Nightingale was also a pioneer of the graphical presentation of statistical data 25 Florence Nightingale worked by sub concepts of the environmental theory She included five factors that helped nurses in her time of working in poor sanitation and with uneducated nurses These factors included 1 fresh air 2 clean water 3 a working drainage system 4 cleanliness and 5 good light or sunlight Nightingale believed that a clean working environment were important in caring for patients In the 19th century this theory was ideal and used to help patients all around even if some factors were hard to get Nightingale made this theory with the ability to be altered This theory was made to change the environment around the patient for the better of their health Nightingale s recommendations built upon the successes of Jamaican doctresses such as Mary Seacole who like Nightingale served in the Crimean War Seacole practised hygiene and the use of herbs in healing wounded soldiers and those suffering from diseases in the 19th century in the Crimea Central America and Jamaica Her predecessors had great success as healers in the Colony of Jamaica in the 18th century and they included Seacole s mother Mrs Grant Sarah Adams Cubah Cornwallis and Grace Donne the mistress and doctress to Jamaica s wealthiest planter Simon Taylor 27 Other important nurses in the development of the profession include Agnes Hunt from Shropshire was the first orthopedic nurse and was pivotal in the emergence of the orthopedic hospital The Robert Jones Agnes Hunt Hospital in Oswestry Shropshire Val rie de Gasparin who opened with her husband Ag nor de Gasparin the first nursing school in the world La Source in Lausanne Switzerland Agnes Jones who established a nurse training regime at the