Question

Write at least 1000 words regarding nurse theorist Virginia Henderson. Your discussion post must include 2 references. You should give a short history of the theorist, discuss their major accomplishments, and discuss how they have made an impact on today's nursing practice.

Answer 1

Virginia Henderson

Virginia Avenel Henderson (November 30, 1897 – March 19, 1996) was a nurse, theorist, and author known for her Need Theory and defining nursing as: “The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge.” Henderson is also known as “The First Lady of Nursing,” “The Nightingale of Modern Nursing,” “Modern-Day Mother of Nursing,” and “The 20th Century Florence Nightingale.”

Career
In 1921 after receiving her Diploma, Virginia Henderson worked at the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service for two years after graduation. She initially planned to switched professions after two years, but her strong desire to help the profession averted her plan. Throughout the years, she helped remedy the view of nurses in part through exhaustive research that helped establish the scholarly underpinnings of her professions.

From 1924 to 1929, she worked as an instructor and educational director in Norfolk Protestant Hospital, Norfolk, Virginia. The following year, in 1930, she was a nurse supervisor and clinical instructor at the outpatient department of Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, New York.

From 1934 to 1948, 14 years of her career, she worked as an instructor and associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. Since 1953, Henderson was a research associate at Yale University School of Nursing and as a research associate emeritus (1971 -1996).

Works of Virginia Henderson
Beginning in 1939, she was the author of three editions of “Principles and Practices of Nursing,” a widely used text, and her “Basic Principles of Nursing,” published in 1966 and revised in 1972, has been published in 27 languages by the International Council of Nurses.

Her most formidable achievement was a research project in which she gathered, reviewed, cataloged, classified, annotated, and cross-referenced every known piece of research on nursing published in English, resulting in the four-volume “Nursing Research: Survey and Assessment,” written with Leo Simmons and published in 1964, and her four-volume “Nursing Studies Index,” completed in 1972.

Nursing Studies Index
The Nursing Studies Index (ICN, 1963) is one of the prominent works of Henderson. In 1953, she accepted a position at Yale University School of Nursing as a research associate for a research project designed to survey and assess the status of nursing research in the United States. After the completion of the survey, it was noted that there is an absence of an organized literature upon which to base clinical studies about nursing.

Honors
Henderson has received numerous honors. The International Council of Nurses presented her with the inaugural Christiane Reimann Prize in 1985 considered the most prestigious award in nursing. She was an honorary fellow of the United Kingdom's Royal College of Nursing (FRCN). She was selected to the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame and has received honorary degrees from thirteen universities.She received the Virginia Historical Nurse Leadership Award in 1985. The Virginia Henderson Repository an online resource for nursing research that grew out of the Virginia Henderson International Nursing Library at Sigma Theta Tau is named in her honor. Henderson was recognized as one of the fifty-one pioneer nurses in Virginia in 2000

Nursing: Need Theory
Henderson's theory stresses the priority of patient self-determination so the patient will continue doing well after being released from the hospital. Henderson characterized the nurse's role as substitutive, which the nurse does for the patient; supplementary, which is helping the patient; or complementary, which is engaging with the patient to do something. The role of the nurse helps the patient become an individual again. She arranged nursing tasks into 14 different components based on personal needs. Not only are nurses responsible for the patient, but also to help the patient be themselves when they leave their care. This assures that the patient has fewer obstacles during recovery from being sick or injured, and helping getting back into self-care is easier when a nurse is there to motivate until the patient goes home

References

1. Virginia Henderson Wikipedia, Retrieved May 3, 2020, from - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Henderson
2. Christiane Reimann Prize. (n.d.). Christiane Reimann Prize. Retrieved July 27, 2014, from https://www.icn.ch/about-icn/christiane-reimann-prize/
3. Home. (n.d.). AAHN Gravesites of Prominent Nurses. Retrieved July 27, 2014, from https://www.aahn.org/gravesites/henderson.html