FROM PRIVATE DUTY TO PUBLIC HEALTH: A HISTORY OF ARKANSAS NURSING, 1895-1954.
Contributors: Memphis State University.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 205
Subjects: History, United States.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Public Health.
Description: Arkansas nurses, before World War II, were a relatively homogeneous and cohesive group. They were not trendsetters for their profession, but neither were they entirely isolated from changes occurring at the national level. Trained nurses pressed for official licensure, for control of their own educational system, and worked together to achieve economic security for members of their profession. While professionalization of nursing was desired by some of their leaders, the majority of nurses were more concerned with economic survival and the daily concerns of patient care. Public health nurses had more opportunity for autonomy and professionalization, but they also failed to achieve true professional status. In spite of this failure, nurses were successful in achieving many reforms which ultimately improved the health care delivery system in Arkansas. Particularly in the area of public health reform, nurses banded together with lay women across the state to lobby for the establishment of a comprehensive public health system. Although nurses were never in administrative control of the Arkansas Department of Health, they were the key figures in the transformation of the department from an impersonal bureaucracy into a personal and integral part of each community. Particularly at the county level, the local public health programs depended almost exclusively on nurses to plan and implement public health reforms.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-03, Section: A, page: 0977.

Thesis (PH.D.)--MEMPHIS STATE UNIVERSITY, 1989.

School code: 0124.