Discussion Response on Mary Breckinridge

Discussion Response on Mary Breckinridge

Hello,

This is a great post. Indeed, Mary Breckinridge was a remarkable nurse and a role model to this date. The American College of Nurse-Midwives recognized Mary as the first nurse to bring to the US, nurse-midwifery. The Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing acknowledge Mary as a leader and pays tribute to her accomplishments. In 1982, the American Nursing Association indicted Mary Breckinridge in its Hall of Fame for her contributions to the profession in women’s health, healthcare delivery in a rural area, and family and community nursing. Mary received several awards and honors during her lifetime, including the University of Kentucky honorary degree in Doctor of Law. Mary died in 1965, and the US honored her memory by issuing a stamp bearing her image in 1998 (Egenes, 2017).

Mary’s legacy continued to impact nursing practice long after her demise. In 2012, a law passed in Massachusetts asserted that  Nurse-midwives were no longer required to work under a physician’s supervision and instead allowed to work in a healthcare facility while having a professional relationship with an ObGyn. In 1925, Mary built the foundation for the nurse role in advanced practice in the US when she brought the British nurse-midwives to the US. At this time, nursing had just become recognized as a profession, and the first nurse registration with licensing occurred in 1904.

In her vision for primary family care for those isolated by geography, poverty, and culture, it may be viewed that Mary developed the first project demonstrating diversity and inclusivity in healthcare (Anderson, 2015). The nurse-midwife was a foreshadowing of the nurse leadership role in advanced practice. The role will continue to expand based on the modeling that was portrayed by Mary, a pioneer who was not afraid to break barriers.

References

Anderson, B. A. (2015). Caring for Vulnerable Populations: The Role of the DNP-Prepared Nurse. Caring for the Vulnerable: Perspectives in Nursing Theory, Practice and Research, 441.

Egenes, K. J. (2017). History of nursing. Issues and trends in nursing: Essential knowledge for today and tomorrow, 1-26.

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Discussion Response on Mary Breckinridge

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Nursing has many different examples of leadership that has made change throughout organizations, institutions, and/or the government. One such example of this is Mary Breckinridge. Mary started her nursing career by taking care of patients during the 1918 influenza epidemic (Petiprin, 2019). She studied in Europe to become a midwife and moved to Kentucky in 1925 (Petiprin, 2019). During this time, she established what became known as the Frontier Nursing Service where she used her personal funds to take care of rural families in the mountains in Kentucky, since this population had little to no access to care (Petiprin, 2019). By the early 1930s, over 1000 families were receiving care through this service (Petiprin, 2019). Eventually, Breckinridge opened the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, which is still open today providing educational opportunities for nurses and advanced practice nurses (Petiprin, 2019). Breckinridge offered services to people in rural areas, which is what nurse practitioners originally did as well. She was successful due to many things. First, she cared. As nurses, we all have a certain amount of care towards our patients, and Breckinridge cared enough to solve a problem that she saw for people. She also had perseverance, which helped her overcome a major obstacle. There were not any roads that were reliable in he mountains of Kentucky, so she and the other nurses utilized horses and mules to reach their patients, which gave them the name nurses on horseback (Petiprin, 2019).

References

• Petiprin, A. (2019, August 13). Mary Carson Breckinridge. Nursing Theory. https://nursing-theory.org/famous-nurses/Mary-Carson-Breckinridge.php.