Event: The Caring that is Health: The Gift of Nursing and Nursing Research in American Society

February 20, 2009

The 2009 Science and Scholarship in Society Series
The Caring that is Health: The Gift of Nursing and Nursing Research in American Society
National Museum of American History
Smithsonian Institution
April 30, 2009

American healthcare is taking a quantum leap into the future. In these next years, we will likely see enormous changes as we face new challenges and opportunities. Yet, despite every change, the center of healthcare remains, namely the call to care selflessly for the needs of those who suffer. Contemporary medicine today utilizes enormous advances in technology. To ensure the public trust, healthcare organizations seek better business models to ensure efficiencies and reduce waste. Realizing the attraction of technologies and efficiencies, healthcare’s humane center requires something or someone to keep its central purpose visible. Over the centuries, one profession that assists this visibility in a powerful way is that of nursing. Within the Western experience, nursing is deeply rooted in the ancient medieval tradition of hospitality, of welcome to the stranger and the poor and the needy. These roots have flowered in the powerful presence of nursing professionals in the history of American medicine. In our time, nursing has become a potent source of scientific advancement and research that enrich the entirety of the American healthcare landscape. This special presentation will offer participants a unique moment in time to reflect upon the critical importance of nursing for American healthcare today, as well as its challenging promise for the enrichment of global healthcare into the future.

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