A new exhibition opening at the Florence Nightingale Museum, in the basement of St Thomas’s Hospital, London, on 21st September explores nursing during history’s deadliest flu pandemic in 1918. Building on Florence Nightingale’s work during the Crimean war, World War I ushered in a new era for military nursing. Women from all walks of life […]
“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance,” cried Jane Austen. Inelegance is the least of some people’s worries when it comes to the hot weather. For some health conditions, a heatwave can be distressing, and even dangerous. Seven health conditions that are harder to cope with in […]
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A transatlantic exchange programme has seen nursing students from Scotland and America compare their countries’ healthcare systems and university training, as part of a strategic partnership between the cities of Aberdeen and Houston. Two students from Houston Baptist University (HBU) have spent two weeks in May 2018 in the North-east, working alongside their counterparts and […]
Human hands are vastly more sophisticated than is necessary for survival. Each has 27 bones and is controlled by 35 muscles; a quarter of the motor cortex is devoted to the muscles of the hands. Unlike ape hands, humans have fully opposable thumbs and a full range of fine finger movement, from straight to tightly-curled. […]
International Nurses Day is the 12th of May and organised annually by the International Council of Nurses. Its a day to celebrate the contribution that nurses make to societies around the world. The date has strong significance, being the birthday of Florence Nightingale. So get up and dance! […]
Nurses often sacrifice their own needs to care for others, and this is right and good and expected. Nursing is a profession of selflessness where you give not to receive but to serve those in need. If you lack the ability to deny yourself (as some nurses seem to), then you can come across as […]
In nursing there are many ways of saying goodbye when the therapeutic relationship ends. Some patients bid a cheery goodbye, cherishing their restored health, even prematurely self-discharging; for others, adieu is agony since it is a wrench to leave the ward routine and regain independence. Sometimes the farewell feels forced in the face of escalating […]
Amid a severe and ongoing winter crisis, it was revealed last week that the NHS has been “hemorrhaging” nurses, and the consequences may be dire. An ageing population will inevitably lead to greater demand strains on the NHS, but evidence has shown that an increasing patient-to-nurse ratio can increase the risk of inpatient deaths[1]. Furthermore, […]
The Kingston and St George’s Nursing oral history project ‘Nurse’s voices’ captures the experiences of nurses working at St George’s hospital in the 1940’s and 50’s. In this video you can hear their memories of working on the wards at Christmas time. […]
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We’ve all forgotten to pack our toothbrush for the holiday, or the reason why we went up the stairs. But for some older people, robbed of their entire memory, life comes to a complete standstill – and that’s because “life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by so quickly you […]