Florence Nightingale's As Future Nurse Anesthetists

Florence Nightingale fulfilled her purpose in life by becoming a nurse during the Crimean War. At the time that Florence lived, nursing was considered a lowly and menial profession, and “against much family opposition,” she became a nurse (Smith & Parker, 2015). She received her training as a nurse in the Institution for the Training of Deaconesses in Germany. This training and later experiences helped Nightingale form and distil her environmental theory to serve the injured soldiers. Hegge outlines Nightingale’s seven tenets that must be addressed to promote the wellbeing of patients. Those tenets are light, ventilation, warmth, bed and bedding, quiet, cleanliness, and food (2013). The implementation of these concepts in the battlefield hospital setting by Nightingale and her nurses reduced the mortality rates drastically (Smith & Parker, 2015). These points are continually addressed in today’s nursing practice. Nightingale used data on mortality rates at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari to drive improvements in sanitation in field hospitals. Similarly, nurses today used evidence-based practice to promote change and transform the healthcare system.

According to the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, in 2011, there were over 721,000 cases of hospital-acquired infections, and 75,000 of those cases died during their hospitalizations (p. 2). These infections can lead to increased length of postoperative hospital stay, drastically escalated expense, and higher mortality rates. By exerting Nightingale’s environmental theory in the operating room, we will be able to reduce surgical sites infections and improve patient