Military Nursing

More than 3000 nurses from Australia served with the Australian Army Nursing Service or the British nursing services during World War I. These nurses served in various theatres of war including Egypt, France, India, Greece, Italy and England. They worked in numerous roles including as a surgical team nurse close to the front working under fire; nursing on hospital ships carrying the sick and wounded; or managing hospital wards overrun with patients whilst dealing with a lack of hospital necessities. The skills and roles needed to be a military nurse significantly differed to the skills required to nurse in Australia.

"The Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), with almost 2,500 trained female nurses, provided nursing care and performed a myriad of other medical, administrative and non-nursing roles for the AIF overseas during the First World War. In 1919 and 1920, the Army demobilised most. However, the nurses’ military service changed their nursing lives forever.
Based on extensive new data, and building on the work of historian Jan Bassett, this paper explores the work of nurses immediately after the war, their continuing ties with the military, how the government’s repatriation system treated them and the commemorations of their work.
While some were entitled to pensions, many others struggled financially through life. Many were mentally and physically exhausted from their military service and found general nursing, their specialty, too arduous. Although other historians such as Marianne Barker and Ruth Rae believe that the AANS set the standards for Australian hospital nursing after the war, many
branched out and pioneered other fields such as infant welfare, repatriation nursing, industrial and school nursing while others opened nurses’ homes."

Points essentiels
■ La mission du Service de santé des armées est le soutien médical des forces armées lors de tout engagement opérationnel.
■ L’infirmier diplômé d’État (IDE) est présent à tous les niveaux de la chaîne de soutien médical en opérations, de la zone de combat aux hôpitaux d’infrastructure métropolitains.
■ L’activité à l’avant représente le cœur de métier de l’IDE militaire.
■ En opération extérieure, l’IDE fait face à une activité médico-chirurgicale
soutenue et variée, centrée principalement sur la traumatologie.
■ L’IDE du rôle 1 est un élément clé de la médicalisation à l’avant, notamment par l’application des procédures de sauvetage au combat et par son rôle dans la formation des combattants et des autres personnels paramédicaux.
■ L’exercice infirmier en opérations, parfois sous le feu ennemi ou lors d’un afflux massif de blessés, nécessite des compétences et une organisation spécifiques.
■ Les compétences spécifiques des IDE à l’avant sont d’ordres techniques, organisationnelles et managériales.
■ La formation des IDE militaires repose sur un programme de formation initiale et continue unique, à la fois médicale et militaire, et dynamique afin de s’adapter sans cesse aux particularités des nouveaux conflits.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the creation, evolution, and implementation of a database of nursing-sensitive and potentially nursing-sensitive indicators, the Military Nursing Outcomes Database (MilNOD). It discusses data quality, utility, and lessons learned. Prospective data collected each shift include direct staff hours by levels (i.e., registered nurse, other licensed and unlicensed providers), staff categories (i.e., military, civilian, contract, and reservist), patient census, acuity, and admissions, discharges, and transfers. Retrospective adverse event data (falls, medication errors, and needle-stick injuries) were collected from existing records. Annual patient satisfaction, nurse work environment, and pressure ulcer and restraint prevalence surveys were conducted. The MilNOD contains shift level data from 56 units in 13 military hospitals and is used to target areas for managerial and clinical performance improvement. This methodology can be modified for use in other healthcare systems. As standard tools for evidence-based management, databases such as MilNOD allow nurse leaders to track the status of nursing and adverse events in their facilities.

The Ottoman-Russian war of 1853 to 1855 was significant not only as a war, but also in response to a reflex from the West brought with itself novel approaches related to care of patients under severe health conditions. Florence Nightingale and her associates assigned at that time to care for soldiers in Istanbul who were severely ailing as a result of battle conditions were instrumental in the emergence of a hitherto unknown profession. This article examines the progress of events in the London-Istanbul axis that led to this development.

Invalid cookery was a key skill of trained nurses up until the 1960s and before the introduction of intravenous feeding was the sole way of keeping sick and wounded patients alive. Although historically seen as mundane, food preparation and feeding took significant amounts of time of a nurse’s daily work. For Australian military nurses on hospital ships and working in hospitals in Egypt and Greece in 1915, feeding soldiers suffering malnutrition and wounds became a significant part of a military nurse’s workload and inventive solutions were necessary in countries overflowing with casualties and short on food supplies. Neglected in the rich and growing body of military and civilian hospital histories in Australia, invalid cookery is a lost part of nursing work these days and thus is of interest to those seeking to define nursing practice in this period.

This article examines public health nursing (PHN) education in the United States from 1900 to 1950. Following establishment of district nursing and the Henry Street Settlement in the late 1800s, nurses worked with families and communities in schools, homes, and with immigrant populations in tenements of industrialized cities. By the early 1900s, PHN leaders recognized that graduates needed broader education than provided by hospital training schools to prepare nurses to address social conditions and promote health and hygiene for populations. Current themes in professional nursing, such as social determinants of health, have their roots in early discourse about PHN education.

This article explores the lives of Anglo-Indian women in employment in the late colonial period. In doing so it emphasises the importance of categories in policing the location of Anglo-Indians within the world of the domiciled and the socio-racial hierarchy of the Raj. The experience of Anglo-Indian women who travelled to Africa and the Middle East before and during World War II, helps to demonstrate how selective identification with Britishness and with India contributed to shaping individual lives and identities. The case of military nurses is particularly foregrounded, based on an interview with Florence Watkins in Jubbulpore in 2010.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the lived experience of U.S. military nurses who served in Iraq or Afghanistan during the war years 2003 to 2009, and life after returning from war.Methods: Colaizzi's phenomenological method guided discovery. This method includes elements of both descriptive and interpretive phenomenology. The sample consisted of 37 military nurses who served in the Army, Navy, or Air Force in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. Four data-generating questions guided the interview process. Most interviews were face-to-face and conducted in naturalistic settings chosen by the participants. Several interviews were conducted telephonically due to geographic constraints. Data analysis followed Colaizzi's method of analysis. Seven themes emerged from the data, including “deploying to war;”“remembrance of war: most chaotic scene;”“nurses in harm's way: more than I bargained for;”“kinship and bonding: my military family;”“my war stress: I'm a different person now;”“professional growth: expanding my skills;” and “listen to me: advice to deploying nurses.” Analysis continued until data saturation was achieved.Results: Results indicated that wartime deployment was a difficult challenge, lessons learned should be shared with nurses deploying in future years, homecoming was more difficult than most nurses anticipated, and reintegration after coming home takes time and effort.Conclusions: Nursing in war is a unique experience regardless of education, preparation and training. There are a myriad of variables that enter into the experience and effect outcomes, both personal and professional.Clinical Relevance: Wartime nursing is a reality in the current clinical practice arena. War takes its toll on everyone involved, including the caregivers. Nurses returning from war can provide valuable insights to those that follow.

During the First World War, 2,845 fully trained nurses served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Although Canadian combat troops were focused on the Western Front in France and Belgium, more than 500 of Canada’s military nurses, called ‘Nursing Sisters,’ worked in hospital units which were sent to the Mediterranean, a part of the Eastern Front. This study will examine the impact of place on nursing sisters’ experiences in the East. The five Canadian medical units to which these nursing sisters were assigned ran hospitals in Cairo, Egypt, on the Greek island of Lemnos, and the Greek city of Salonika between 1915 and 1917. The circumstances in each of these three locations presented a tremendous variety of problems for the nurses: there was no monolithic Mediterranean theatre experience for Canada’s nursing sisters.
On the island of Lemnos, nursing sisters encountered temporary hospital infrastructure which was inadequate for the extreme weather. Administrative chaos, nursing sister illness, and a desperate lack of supplies further hampered their efforts to care for soldier-patients. The city of Salonika was close to active fighting, and the surrounding marshy land resulted in a great many malarial mosquitos. Problems arising from nursing sister sickness and the need for nursing reinforcements were more acute as a result of the considerable length of time Canadian hospitals were posted in Salonika. Egypt was a place of contrasts for the nursing sisters. Many spent large amounts of time at leisure while they waited to be sent to their hospitals in Greece; others worked in the Canadian hospital in Cairo. Nursing sisters were struck by the contrast between modern and ancient architecture and difference in cultural practices they witnessed in Egypt.
The experiences of Canadian nursing sisters in these three Mediterranean settings reveal how they and their hospital units participated in an extended military healthcare network composed of many types of hospitals from different countries, as well as hospital ships and large administrative structures. Beyond the military organization, the nursing sisters’ time in the Mediterranean can be further elucidated by examining their relationships with the local inhabitants and environment. Often overshadowed by the strong presence of the Western Front in Canada’s memory of the First World War, the Mediterranean experiences of hundreds of nursing sisters and their five Canadian hospital units form an important, and under-examined, part of Canadian military nursing history in conjunction with an overlooked part of Canadian history and international cooperative work.

Invalid cookery was a key skill of trained nurses up until the 1960s and before the introduction of intravenous feeding was the sole way of keeping sick and wounded patients alive. Although historically seen as mundane, food preparation and feeding took significant amounts of time of a nurse’s daily work. For Australian military nurses on hospital ships and working in hospitals in Egypt and Greece in 1915, feeding soldiers suffering malnutrition and wounds became a significant part of a military nurse’s workload and inventive solutions were necessary in countries overflowing with casualties and short on food supplies. Neglected in the rich and growing body of military and civilian hospital histories in Australia, invalid cookery is a lost part of nursing work these days and thus is of interest to those seeking to define nursing practice in this period.

This essay surveys Australian military nursing history during World War I, providing an overview of this emerging historical field, a sub section of nursing history. It traces contributions made by both academic and non-professional historians to the historical contextualisation of the experience of military nursing, and points to new directions for future investigation.

Continuous education is something that any professional should seek to complete all his knowledge and keep applying it in his day-today. When you're a Nurse you live each day in the search to provide our patients the best that our holistic view and available means can allow. The object of our care and knowledge is our equal. To him we are committed to help, care and look after. To a Military Nurse this role is performed in conditions that no one of our peers will be prepared to. The Military Nurse is not a common professional and not being better or worse than the others, he's just different! Is the Portuguese Military Nurse prepared for NATO missions?

The Readiness Estimate and Deployability Index Revised for Air Force Nurses (READI-R-AFN) was derived from modifications of Reineck's Readiness Instrument. Reliability and validity of the READI-R-AFN was estimated on completed questionnaires of 181 active duty Air Force nurses. The READI-R-AFN was evaluated based on item analysis, internal consistency (alpha coefficient, >0.70), confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modeling, and hypothesis testing. The findings were supported by Flannery's model of stress resistance. There was evidence of reliability and validity of the 83-item READI-R-AFN based on internal consistency (alpha, 0.80-0.96), structural equation modeling, and hypothesis testing. The original hypothesized six dimensions were retained.

1. Pharm Hist Aust. 2008 Mar;4(34):3-5. Sister dispensers-- Australian trained nurses in pharmacy. Harris K.  PMID: 18831391 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]. Publication Types: Historical Article. MeSH Terms. Australia; Education, Pharmacy/history*; Female; History, 20th Century; Humans; Nurse's Role/history*; Pharmacy/history*; World War I*.

Introdução Nos primórdios da humanidade os homens feridos e que adoeciam nas lutas entre clãs e tribos eram decerto, à semelhança dos outros seres humanos, tratados pelos xamãs ou curandeiros e posteriormente cuidados por quem nas tribos era responsável por essa atividade. Habitualmente as mulheres. Isso podemos ver na obra de Plutarco, "Vidas paralelas: Teseu e Rómulo", na página 44, em que as Sabinas cuidam dos feridos resultantes da luta entre a sua tribo e aqueles que as tinham raptado: os fundadores de Roma (Leão e Fialho, 2008). Mais tarde com a organização dos primeiros exércitos, certamente que havia guerreiros ou pessoas que acompanhavam as hostes, as quais tinham entre outras atividades, a responsabilidade de acudir àqueles que adoeciam em campanha e que ficavam feridos nas batalhas, prestando-lhes os primeiros cuidados, retirando-os dos locais onde se pelejava para um local mais resguardado e calmo, onde pudessem recuperar das mazelas feridas e ser cuidados. Tais atividades seriam exercidas em enfermarias. Disso foram exemplo as enfermarias constituídas por tendas que D. Afonso Henriques mandou erguer junto de cada acampamento que estabeleceu no cerco da tomada de Lisboa aos mouros em 1147 (Moisão, 2012). Ao comemorarmos o Dia Internacional do Enfermeiro, que acontece a 12 de maio, data em que Florence Nightingale nasceu há 119 anos e tendo sido convidado para proferir esta palestra nesta nobre instituição de Saúde Militar que é o HFAR propus-me a relembrar algumas personalidades que marcaram a enfermagem castrense mundial, desde o séc. XV até a meados do séc. passado. Para isso socorri-me de fontes secundárias a partir das quais fundamentei as palavras que irei proferir. Tem pois esta comunicação como objetivos: identificar as principais personalidades que em minha opinião terão marcado a enfermagem castrense.

This paper forms part of the first British Armed forces qualitative nursing research study undertaken on deployment. To provide an analysis of the impact and effectiveness of the pre-deployment educational preparation and clinical placements provided for military nurses. A Constructivist Grounded Theory was utilised with data collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 nurses based in Camp Bastion Hospital, Afghanistan during 2013. Initial coding indicated 21 educational preparation and clinical placement categories that influenced the delivery of nursing care. Analysis of these elements led to the identification of four major clusters: Military Nursing Care; Military Nurse Education; Unique Hospital Environment and Clinical Placements. Educational preparation consists of completing deployable operational nursing competencies, specialist training and individual tailored courses. This strategy was viewed as proving the appropriate academic requirement. However, training woul...

Medical evacuation has changed form the experiences of the past decade of combat operations. Much of the focus of the medical support in the combat zone is now critical care during evacuation, which is, and will continue to be, a very successful, life-saving asset. The assignment of Army critical care or trauma nurses to medical evacuation units is consistent with the recognition that the medical evacuation system is a truly vital asset in the success of today's American military. Our NATO allies, and our sister services, rely heavily on the availability, reliability, and especially continuity of care of the Arm medical evacuation system. It is time to upgrade the system of evacuation and provide our Warriors with the greatest possibilities of survival. Army nurses trained in critical care and trauma nursing are best suited to provide that continuity of care.

his study aimed to analyze the scientific productions on the process of nursing education in the military scope. This is an integrative literature review study performed between September 1st and 2nd, 2019, based on an electronic bibliographic survey in all databases from the Virtual Health Library. The thesauri were the following: Military Nursing; Teaching; Military Personnel; Nursing. Thematic categorization was performed for data analysis and interpretation. Four articles were selected and two categories were elaborated: Main forms of nursing education in the military scope and Use of active methodology in military nursing education. The use of traditional teaching techniques in the military scope is emphasized primarily, but the importance of breaking this paradigm with the use of active methodologies is highlighted. The number of studies focused on education in the military scope is small.