Historical Timeline of Nursing (1775 – Today)

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1775: In July 1775, a plan was submitted to the Second Continental Congress that provided one nurse for every ten patients and provided that a matron be allotted to every hundred sick or wounded”.

1853: In 1853 Theodore Fliedner set up a hospital where the nurses he employed had to be of good nature. Many people were impressed with this facility, and because of it, the British Institute of Nursing Sisters was set up.

1873: Important nurses in the development of the profession include: Mary Seacole, who also worked as a nurse in the Crimea; Agnes Elizabeth Jones and Linda Richards, who established quality nursing schools in the USA and Japan, and Linda Richards who was officially America’s first professionally trained nurse, graduating in 1873 from the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston.

1874: In 1874 the first formal nursing training program was started at the General and Marine Hospital in St. Catharines in Ontario.Many programs popped up in hospitals across Canada after this one was established. Graduates and teachers from these programs began to fight for licensing legislation, nursing journals, university training for nurses, and for professional organizations for nurses.

1901: In 1901 Canadian nurses were officially part of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.Georgina Fane Pope and Margaret Clothilde Macdonald were the first nurses officially recognized as military nurses.Nursing continued to expand and develop. In the early twentieth century more nursing programs were developed for public health nursing and disease prevention. More changes occurred after World War II. The health care system expanded and medicare was introduced. Currently there are 260,000 nurses in Canada but they face the same difficulties as most countries. Nurses are becoming more scarce and the population is aging which requires more nursing care.

1903: New Zealand was the first country to regulate nurses nationally, with adoption of the Nurses Registration Act on the 12 September 1901. It was here in New Zealand that Ellen Dougherty became the first registered nurse. North Carolina was the first state in the United States to pass a nursing licensure law in 1903.

1918: Military nursing had only a small role for women in Britain, where 10,500 nurses enrolled in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service. These services dated to 1902 and 1918, and enjoyed royal sponsorship.

1934: In 1934 the Nazis set up their own nursing unit, the Brown nurses, and absorb one of the smaller groups, bringing it up to 40,000 members. It set up kindergartens, hoping to seize control of the minds of the younger Germans, in competition with the other nursing organizations.

1942: Down to 1942, the American Red Cross controlled access to the military. The Red Cross was controlled by civilian men, professional experts and social work and fundraising. When the nurses returned home they used the previously powerless American Nurses Association to take control of the nursing profession.

1948: Internationally, there is a serious shortage of nurses. One reason for this shortage is due to the work environment in which nurses practice.

1952: In 1952 Japan established the first nursing university in the country.An Associate Degree was the only level of certification for years. Soon people began to want nursing degrees at a higher level of education. Soon the Bachelors Degree in Nursing was established. Currently Japan offers doctorate level degrees of nursing in a good number of its universities.

1957: Some nurses in Japan are trying to be advocates. They are promoting better nursing education as well as promoting the care of the elderly. There are some organizations that unite Japanese nurses like the Japanese Nursing Association. One of the older unions that relates to nursing is the Japanese Federation of Medical Workers Union which was created in 1957.It is a union that includes physicians as well as nurses. This organization was involved with the Nursing Human Resource Law .

1992: Nursing was not an established part of Japan’s healthcare system until 1899 with the Midwives Ordinance.From there the Registered Nurse Ordinance came into play in 1915. This established a legal substantiation to registered nurses all over Japan. A new law geared towards nurses was created during World War II. This law was titled the Public Health Nurse, Midwife and Nurse Law and it was established in 1948.It established educational requirements, standards and licensure. There has been a continued effort to improve nursing in Japan. In

1992 the Nursing Human Resource Law was passed.This law created the development of new university programs for nurses. Those programs were designed to raise the education level of the nurses so that they could be better suited for taking care of the public.

1997: To practice lawfully as a registered nurse in the United Kingdom, the practitioner must hold a current and valid registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The title “Registered Nurse” can only be granted to those holding such registration. This protected title is laid down in the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act, 1997.

2000: Before Project 2000, nurse education was the responsibility of hospitals and was not based in universities; hence many nurses who qualified prior to these reforms do not hold an academic award.

2000: The oldest method of nursing education is the hospital-based diploma program, which lasts approximately three years. Students take between 30 and 60 credit hours in anatomy, physiology, microbiology, nutrition, chemistry, and other subjects at a college or university, then move on to intensive nursing classes. Until 1996, most RNs in the US were initially educated in nursing by diploma programs.According to the Health Services Resources Administration’s 2000 Survey of Nurses only six percent of nurses who graduated from nursing programs in the United States received their education at a Diploma School of Nursing.

2001: There has been a serious shortage of nurses for many years. A national survey prepared by the Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals in 2001 found that one in five nurses plans to leave the profession within five years because of unsatisfactory working conditions, including low pay, severe under staffing, high stress, physical demands, mandatory overtime, and irregular hours.

2006: All newly qualifying district nurses and Health Visitors are trained to prescribe from the Nurse Prescribers’ Formulary, a list of medications and dressings typically useful to those carrying out these roles. Many of these nurses will also undertake training in independent and supplementary prescribing, which allows them to prescribe almost any drug in the British National Formulary. This has been the cause of a great deal of debate in both medical and nursing circles.

2006: RNs are the largest group of health care workers in the United States, numbering over 2.6 million. It has been reported that the number of new graduates and foreign-trained nurses is insufficient to meet the demand for registered nurses; this is often referred to as the nursing shortage and is expected to increase for the foreseeable future. There are data to support the idea that the nursing shortage is a voluntary shortage. In other words, nurses are leaving nursing of their own volition. In 2006 it was estimated that approximately 1.8 million nurses chose not to work as a nurse.

2007: The average salary for a staff RN in the United States in 2007 was over $60,000.

2008: Median annual wages of registered nurses were $62,450 in May 2008. The middle 50 percent earned between $51,640 and $76,570. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $43,410, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $92,240. Median annual wages in the industries employing the largest numbers of registered nurses in May 2008 were:

2013: As of 2013, the Nursing and Midwifery Council will require all new nurses qualifying in England to hold a degree qualification.

Resource by T.Price

I am a mom of 2 boys who loves to spend time with them doing fun things outdoors. In my spare time I have my own things I enjoy doing such as gardening, reading old books, and being a closet history buff.

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