| Summary |
The purpose of the study was to examine the history of nursing education in terms of one hospital in North Carolina. The focus of the study was three-fold. First was to examine the history of nursing and nursing education from AD 500 to present day, second to investigate the history of Park View Hospital, and third to gain insight into the history of nursing education at Park View School of Nursing. The research reported here was qualitative in nature, and the specific qualitative strategy used in this study was historiography. The primary sources utilized in this study were oral interviews with ten previous Park View nursing graduates and a former Park View physician, investigating Park View School of Nursing annuals, photo albums, booklets, and pamphlets, and reviewing newspaper articles about Park View Hospital and Park View School of Nursing. Secondary methods used in this study were various history books pertaining to nursing history and a video pertaining to the history of nursing in North Carolina. This research provided a compilation of the historical literature pertaining to the history of nursing and nursing education prior to Florence Nightingale, the Nightingale Revolution, and data on the history of nursing in the United States, and North Carolina. The research has shown throughout the history of Park View School of Nursing the time required for completion of the nursing program was three years. From 1914 to 1969, Park View physicians taught the majority of classes, while nursing instructors taught the skills of nursing. Throughout all six decades of Park View History, nursing students were required to staff the hospital in addition to attending class. The research has shown that Park View School of Nursing closed in 1969. The reasons for the closing of Park View Nursing School were increasing cost brought on by the federal minimum wage law, the rising number of Medicare, welfare, and indigent patients, and the requirement of the State Board of Nursing that prohibited student nurses from working without the supervision of nursing faculty. |
