N108: Transition to the Registered Professional Nurse

N108: Transition to the Registered Professional Nurse Role Study Guide The Nightingale course focused on the patient’s environment making it airy and clean. Nightingale was bitterly opposed to licensing nurses. She believed nursing was a calling and licensure depreciated that calling. In 1873, the first Nightingale-model training school began in the U.S. Linda Richards became the night superintendent of this program at Bellevue Hospital in New York. The first licensure law passed in 1903 in North Carolina with similar laws in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia following. Cadet Nurse Corps The Bolton Act of 1943 resulted in the creation of the Cadet Nurse Corps. The nursing shortage during WWII highlighted the need for more nurses. This was the first federal program to subsidize nursing education. The female recruits of the Cadet Nurse Corps received federal tuition money, uniforms, and a monthly stipend while they pursued their nursing education. After completing the program, the nurses were required to serve a period of time in the military. This program proved that nurses could be trained successfully in a short period of time. Nurse Training/Education Act The Nurse Training Act of 1964 was a law signed by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson in an effort to solve the problems associated with the nursing shortage in the country. The Nurse Training Act of 1964 is the most significant nursing legislation in the history of our country. The shortage of nurses had forced some hospitals to close wards and entire sections. Others had to fill vacancies with people who were poorly or incompletely trained. The act contains four principal elements: • It authorizes a program of grants to build and renovate nursing schools. • It establishes a program to help schools of nursing strengthen their training programs and to help diploma schools of nursing meet the costs that come with increased enrollment. • It expands the existing program of advanced training of professional nurses. • It establishes a loan program, which will enable many talented but needy students to undertake the professional training for a nursing career. Academic Nursing Programs Practical/Vocational This is often used interchangeably with vocational nurse, however, this caregiver started out as the family, friend, or community citizen who was called to the home in emergencies. This person was usually self-taught and learned by experience which procedures were effective and which were not. The practical nurse performed basic care procedures, such as bathing, and also cooked and performed light housekeeping duties for the family. Although controls on licensing of practical nurses and the accreditation of their curricula were slower to evolve than those regulating professional nursing, states gradually enacted licensure laws governing practical nursing. By 1945, 19 states and one territory had licensure laws, but licensure of the practical nurse was mandatory in only one state. By 1955, all states had licensure laws for practical nurses. The first programs were initiated through the YWCA in Brooklyn, New York. These

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