| Learning Objective #1: Describe nursing principles and skills learned by nurses at the Hardwicke Fever Hospital in Dublin in the early 19th century | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Describe the teaching-learning process through which the nurses and Dr. Cheyne established the content of nurse education at Hardwicke Fever Hospital |
Design: Historical, using a theoretical framework of collaborative clinical learning.
Sources: Primary: early nineteenth-century Dublin Hospital Reports and Dublin House of Industry Governors' Minute Books, 1815-1819. Secondary: commentaries on early nineteenth-century nursing and medical practice in Ireland.
Methods: Examination and analysis of documentary evidence. Identification of the nurses, the context within which their education took place, the principles and skills of nursing practice and the nature of the teaching-learning process.
Findings: The 120-bed Hardwicke Fever Hospital served the indigent poor during a time of widespread poverty and recurring epidemics of fevers. The physician to the hospital, John Cheyne, was renowned for his clinical skill, medical writing and his ‘art of eliciting the knowledge and bringing forth the powers and acquirements of others.’ He held the lay nurses in high esteem, and described them as ‘kind, handy and faithful to their trust.’ He recognised the difficulties under which they laboured, the crucial importance of their nursing work, and particularly their need for formal nursing education. He provide this education, the principles and skills of which included detailed guidelines for physical assessment, observation of signs and symptoms of disease, medication management, diets, food and fluid intake and output, emotional care, mouth care, positioning and pressure area care, cleanliness, and ventilation of wards. Teaching and learning took place through observation and discussion during daily clinical rounds of patients, and within a relatively collaborative and collegial nurse-physician relationship.
Conclusions: This little-known example of nurse education included the core principles and skills of modern professional nursing practice and may be the first documented example of nursing education in modern times.
Implication: Nineteenth-century nurse education existed in Ireland before the time of Florence Nightingale.
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