Virginia Henderson, Eminent Nurse

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Henderson, born in 1897 in Kansas City, Missouri, attended the Army School of Nursing in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1921 to become the first full-time nursing instructor in Virginia. The author points out that Henderson was instrumental in pushing for the inclusion of psychiatric nursing in educational programs in Virginia. The paper stresses that Henderson offered a developmental model of nursing in 1961 based on the assumption that the patient is always a person who requires help to achieve independence.

From the Paper:

"Henderson's life covered all of the major dates in the development of modern nursing as a practice; she contributed to the development of the profession and continues to do so as others follow in her footsteps. She encouraged research in nursing, and nursing research only began with Florence Nightingale at the end of the Nineteenth Century as she observed conditions during the Crimean War and noted significant evidence which led to reform. Early research was directed primarily at improving nursing education and nursing services, and this was because early leaders were usually responsible for both areas at a time when there were significant knowledge gaps. In the earliest period, medicine was still only semi scientific."

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