Following in the Footsteps of Florence Nightingale

With Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine.

As senior advisor for nursing for the nation's largest health care philanthropy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Susan B. Hassmiller has had nursing in her blood from an early age. From candy striper to nurse's aide to nurse to the director of the RWJF Initiative on the Future of Nursing, at the Institute of Medicine, Hassmiller is spending her summer vacation in Europe, retracing the steps of the legendary Florence Nightingale.  In this and upcoming posts in the American Journal of Nursing's Off the Charts blog, Hassmiller reports on her inspiring trip to London, at Embley Park and Istanbul, Turkey and what it means to her work today. Below is an excerpt from Sue's first post.

Eighteen years old and ‘hot to trot.’ That’s what I thought I was. Having just been admitted into nursing school, I was set to change the world…one patient at a time. They tried to teach me about Florence Nightingale, but she was someone from the past…not likely to help me learn to start IVs, put in catheters, or run ventilators. If there were iPods back then, I would have used mine to avoid lessons about how Florence Nightingale changed the face of nursing forever. Read the full post here.

Update: Sue Hassmiller answers six questions about her trip for RWJF's Sharing Nursing's Knowledge (August 2010).