Abstract
For well over a century, nurses have been at the forefront of disaster nursing, beginning with Florence Nightingale in the 1800s. Since that time, nurses have responded to thousands of disasters of all types both nationally and internationally. Nurses’ critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills make them highly qualified to respond to the multifaceted and unique demands imposed by disasters. The high level of clinical competence and decision-making capacity possessed by nurses also makes them vastly adept in delivering a wide range of care (e.g., triage, trauma, life support, mental health, and infection control) across all phases of disasters from mitigation to recovery efforts. Since the 1920s, military nurses, in particular, have contributed significantly to what is known about disaster nursing as a result of their wide-ranging experiences domestically and internationally. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the history of disaster nursing including how the United States military plays a role.
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges Lauren Frost, Ada Genere, Marissa Grammar, Alina Mujukian, Stephanie Slater and Kathryn Teague, Nurse Anesthesia Program, Bouvé College of Health Sciences, and Northeastern University, Boston, MA for their help with reviewing the literature.
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Murray, J.S. (2020). History of Disaster Nursing. In: Goodhue, C., Blake, N. (eds) Nursing Management of Pediatric Disaster. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43428-1_2
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