| Friday, July 15, 2005: 4:30 PM-6:00 PM | |||
| A History of Healing Traditions in American Nursing | |||
| Learning Objective #1: Describe three healing traditions/modalities used by early American nurses of different cultures prior to the Civil War | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify two similarities and differences among the historical nursing practices of European American, American Indian, and African American women | |||
| The proposed symposium explores the healing practices of early American women nurses from European-American, American-Indian, and African-American cultures. The early “nurses” identified in this symposium worked as community-recognized women healers before the American Civil War and before licensure and hospital or university-based nursing education became the standard for American nursing. These histories demonstrate that many early American nurses were autonomous leaders and experts, as well as participants, in a community network of women in which various healing skills and knowledge were taught and practiced. Some examples of the nurses’ healing traditions included in the papers are the herbal remedies, water therapies, and spiritual practices used in the comfort and care of the sick, pregnant, infirm and dying. The research of three nursing scholars provides a unique historical perspective of early nurses from each of their three cultures: European-American, American Indian, and African-American. Triangulated case study and oral history are the historical research methods demonstrated in this symposium. Some of the challenges in conducting a history of American nurses prior to the mid nineteenth-century will be discussed. | |||
| Organizer: | Martha M. Libster, PhD, RN, CNS | ||
| Presenter: | Martha M. Libster, PhD, RN, CNS | ||
| A History of the Healing Traditions of Early European-American Nurses Martha M. Libster, PhD, RN, CNS | |||
| A History of Healing Traditions in American Indian Nurses Margaret Moss, DSN, RN | |||
| A History of Healing Traditions in American Nursing: African-American Women’s Role as Nurses Glenda L. Smith, DSN, RNC, NNP, APRN, BC, PNP | |||