On Tuesday 13 August 2024, I had the pleasure of attending the fifth Australian College of Nursing (ACN) History Faculty Conference held at the Cairns Convention Centre. The audience was treated to a variety of topics and perspectives, sparking interesting debates and offering opportunities for deep reflection on the history of our profession.
The presentation by the keynote speaker Professor Dame Anne Marie Rafferty DBE FACN (Hon), further developed my understanding of just who Florence Nightingale was and how her influence still impacts our profession today. Professor Rafferty spoke about Nightingale and her interest in data, statistics, and the use of graphs to illustrate the landscape of health care at the time. Nightingale developed an understanding of the laws of nature by seeing regular patterns in numbers and statistics and combined this with her deeply religious views and a desire to combine health in body and mind.
That Nightingale was one of the first health data analysts was something I did not know, nor did I realise that she was a close friend of the author Charles Dickens. If Dickens looked to Nightingale for inspiration for nursing characters in his writings, then I would suggest that this was yet another avenue where she influenced the professional image and potentially continues to have an impact in modern-day nursing.
In a time when medicine was rudimentary, Nightingale wrote her book Notes in Nursing: What it is and What it is Not to help improve the health literacy of the time and provide a guide for the middle class to heal the sick at home. Nightingale used co-design in her development of hospital environments, using patient experiences to engineer models and pathways to lead frugal change.
Whilst I could write forever on the things I learned about Nightingale from this presentation, I think my greatest light bulb moment occurred during question time when a brave nurse researcher, who specialised in the history of First Nations people and health care, challenged the views portrayed in the presentation. Her comments with regard to Nightingale’s unfounded ideas about our Australian Indigenous culture and cleanliness and the impact on the Indigenous community at that time really brought home to me how little I understand about how our profession has shaped Australia. Thank you to this nurse and Professor Rafferty for an honest conversation about the impacts of historic racism and how it can profoundly impact for many generations.
To note a few highlights, Dr Barbara Black MACN, spoke about gender discrimination in her presentation, bringing to light the poor conditions of employment for nurses in the 1960s, primarily as nursing was a female-dominated profession. Whilst Nightingale and Lucy Osburn had paved a pathway and a role for women in the workplace, the role remained undervalued for many decades.
The presentation from Dr Susan Timpani MACN about the horrific conditions of the destitute children who lived and died in a state-run institute in 1867 was impactful. The story of the South Australian Grace Darling Institute reflected a shameful time in the history of our country. The vivid descriptions of filth and the neglect of these innocent children by the people who should have been providing them with care were quite confronting but also moving. Susan’s presentation aimed to provide a voice to the forgotten children of the institute at a time when they were a low priority for society.
We also learned from Angela Sheedy MACN, that the Northern Territory trialled a pandemic response many years before our recent pandemic and managed to keep the Spanish Flu out of the state. What do they say about history repeating itself?
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the presentation of Professor Odette Best FACN and her recollection of Mary, one of our first Aboriginal nurses. Whilst her whole story was plagued with the racism of the day, Mary was a pioneer in her local town and one of the first nurse navigators undertaking public health via horseback in her community. She also visited her local community members in hospital if they were admitted. A champion of the profession.
For me, the conference was an opportunity to reflect on our modern-day practices and processes. When I finish my time in the profession, no doubt the history conference will include things that I can relate to having happened during my career. The important part of learning about our history for me was the chance to realise that we have come so far in most areas but not in others. It is not only fascinating to look back at the “good old days” but also to reflect that they may not, in fact, have been the “good” days for the nurses or community involved. As a profession, we practice evidence-based nursing, and I hope that we continue looking back to move forward and not be afraid to have honest conversations about the impacts of the past on the profession today while acknowledging how far we have come. Whilst I have only touched on a few of the presentations of the day, I would like to thank all of the presenters for their efforts to keep our history alive.
Author: Michelle Reardon MACN
