Nursing in a Time and Place of Peril: Five North Carolina Nurses

ASU Author/Contributor (non-ASU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Phoebe Ann Pollitt PhD, Associate Professor (Creator)
Institution
Appalachian State University (ASU )
Web Site: https://library.appstate.edu/

Abstract: Nurses are all around us. They attend our births and deaths, administer healing treatments when we are ill andhelp us promote well-being through public health and mental health programs. Almost every family can identify a nurseor two on its family tree. Nurses are members of and care for members of every racial, religious and cultural group. Forover a century, nurses have worked in rural and urban areas, provided care in chrome trimmed surgical suites andtumble down cabins and have navigated legal, political and economic currents to improve the health of the public whilecontinuously upgrading the profession. While much nursing history has been chronicled by scholars, the record ofNorth Carolina military nurses is virtually unknown. Illuminating the stories of a select group of nurses who have caredfor soldiers from the Civil War through the current war on terror can offer insights and increase understanding ofdevelopment of professional nursing and the evolving role of women in our society. Historical inquiry involves studyingprimary and secondary sources to increase our understanding of the past. Evidenced based source material may includewritten documents, oral histories, artifacts, photographs and new media such as websites and even “tweets”. Nursehistorians use all of these forms of evidence to discover and analyze our collective professional heritage. Historicalfindings may be disseminated through oral, written, audio-visual and electronic means. The best method to reporthistorical findings depends on the subject of inquiry. Prosopography, frequently referred to as collective biography, is auseful historical tool to chronicle a group of individuals with shared characteristics and/or experiences. Whilebiographies and case studies focus on the uniqueness of a single person, prosopography allows the researcher to analyzethe changing roles and status of a cluster of individuals. Using a prosopographic approach, this article analyzes theprogress of professional nursing through the contributions of five North Carolina military nurses over the course of onehundred and fifty years.Pollitt,

Additional Information

Publication
Pollitt, Pheobe & Humphries, A. (2013) Nursing in a Time and Place of Peril: Five North Carolina Nurses. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice. DOI: 10.5430/jnep.v3n9p176. [URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/jnep.v3n9p176]. [ISSN 1925-4059].
Language: English
Date: 2013

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