Nurses in North Carolina History
by Fay Mitchell
Since 1982, May 6 has been recognized as National Nurse’s Day in the United States. That date was chosen to honor the original heroine nurse, Florence Nightingale, whose birthday was May 6, 1820, and who is considered the originator of the nursing profession. Her pioneering work during the Crimean War has inspired generations.
North Carolina has its own version of Florence Nightingale in the person of Mary L. Wyche. She was born near Henderson, N.C. in 1858. She wanted to become a nurse as a youth and overcame obligations to her large family in order to study the profession. She had to move to Philadelphia to train as there were no nursing schools in North Carolina. She completed her studies in 1894.
Wyche returned to North Carolina and to the newly established Rex Hospital in Raleigh. There she served as head nurse, bookkeeper, matron and furthermore established the state’s first school of nursing in 1894. Wyche founded the Raleigh Nurse’s Association later the North Carolina State Nurses Association in 1902.
Segregation was alive and well at the time, and in 1920 Carrie Early Broadfoot, who was educated in Philadelphia also, established the N.C. Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. African American nurses were trained at the St. Agnes Hospital Training School for Nurses in Raleigh, which was established in 1896. The two professional groups merged in 1949.
Tuning in to watch “Nurse Jackie” or “HawthoRNe” on TV won’t really give a true picture of the life of a nurse today, but nurses do have lots of career choices. “Call the Midwife” onscreen is well received, and being a midwife is indeed one career option. Other nursing options include emergency, forensics, pediatric, nephrology, neonatal intensive care, telemetry, geriatrics, labor and delivery, flight/transport, trauma, neuroscience, hospice, home health and nearly 100 other specialties.
Nurses do a lot more than bandage wounds, take temperatures or blood pressures. They may be involved with health promotion and counseling, obtaining health histories, supervising LPN’s and nurse assistants, and taking part in critical decision making. Sometimes hospitals employ nurse practitioners to serve in the absence of hospitalists, doctors who can oversee units and rotate between hospitals when the number of physicians doesn’t meet the demand, often in rural settings. Nurse practitioners oversee patient care in many of the state’s nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities, with a physician on-call as back-up who may visit weekly.
Be nice to a nurse. The numbers are shrinking as the demand is growing, particularly as Baby Boomers age. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts registered nursing as one of the top occupations for job growth through 2026. Researchers predict that one million nurses will retire by the year 2030. Additionally, insufficient staff and facilities led to 75,000 qualified nursing school applicants being turned away from nursing programs in the U.S in 2018. The average nurse’s salary in North Carolina in 2018 was $62,560, well above the state’s 2017 median household income of $52,752. Nursing is still a good career choice.
So this Nurse’s Day, take a moment to appreciate the world of nursing, and also a nurse.
Credits:
Appalachian State University, News & Observer, Nurse’s Journal, The Hospitalist, Nurse’s.org, American College of Nursing
