Unsung Innovators: The Overlooked Legacy of Nursing Pioneers in Healthcare

Gendered Barries Care Professionals Face

While all women–especially women of color–have been largely and intentionally erased from the historical narrative, women in the caring professions are especially disrespected due to the nature of their work. 

That’s because professions that stem from care work—all of the mental, physical, and emotional labor associated with caring for, educating, feeding, and tending to others, such as nursing, social work, and teaching, face a double dose of gender discrimination. 

Historically and currently, these professions are predominantly filled with women, so we know their contributions and inventions have largely gone overlooked. However, they face an additional barrier in finding the respect, support, and funding they require from society because, subconsciously or consciously, these roles have long been viewed as an extension of womanhood. 

According to sociologist Susan Pickard’s paper titled The ‘Good Carer’: Moral Practices in Late Modernity, “Being a good Carer is indistinguishable from being a good woman, and neither of them is negotiable.” 

Because most nurses are women, and women are expected to work hard to provide exceptional care and comfort at the cost of their own needs, the achievements of those who don’t fit the societal expectation of perfect womanhood are often scrubbed from history. These rogue nurses are then replaced with those who fit the mold and follow the rules, like Florence Nightingale.

But dig deep into the annals of history, and you’ll find a host of bold nurse innovators who took action, took control, and created entirely new ways of nursing that radically transformed how healthcare was delivered in the modern day. These are their stories. 

Humanitarian Nursing: Mary Seacole

When discussing the historical erasure of nurses and their contributions, one must start with Mary Seacole. Though she also traveled to the Crimean Peninsula and served bravely as a nurse, exactly like her famous counterpart Florence Nightingale, her name has mostly been lost to time thanks to racism and classism. 

According to nursing historian Sarah DiGregorio, Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1805. Her mother was a well-known healer who ran a boarding house frequented by British soldiers. From an early age, she showed an interest and aptitude for the healing arts and practiced her skills regularly. 

She was also a prolific traveler and visited many countries, including England, Haiti, the Bahamas, and Cuba. Like her peer Florence Nightingale, Seacole was fiercely patriotic and a highly experienced nurse by the time the Crimean War broke out. She volunteered immediately to work on the dangerous front lines with Nightengale.

However, after a long journey, Seacole arrived at the London War Office, but military leadership refused to even meet with her. After enduring abhorrent treatment from them but ever-undeterred, Seacole sought out Nightengale herself to offer her services directly. 

Just as in the War Office, Seacole was made to wait for many hours, only to receive a letter stating that they were no longer recruiting nurses and that her services would not be needed. Nightingale, too, could not be bothered to meet with her. 

These cruel humiliations were devastating to Seacole, who so badly wanted to help the soldiers in need as she had done her whole life. Though she was a black woman, she had been serving as a nurse and healer in mixed-race communities, and the blatant racism she experienced was shocking. 

Instead of going home, however, Seacole went on to Crimea in a true demonstration of her brilliance, grit, and tenacity. Alone, unfunded, and unsupported by the British government, she opened a hotel where soldiers could find food, lodging, and medical care. 

Unlike Nightingale’s hospital, which was hundreds of miles away from the frontlines, Seacole’s hotel was much closer, so she was able to visit the battlefield, sometimes dodging bullets to provide medical care to wounded soldiers. 

Sadly, unlike Nightingale, Mary Seacole received zero credit, support, or recognition for her incredible bravery and commitment to caring for others. Yet in doing so, she and Nightingale helped pioneer a new model of nursing, which provides care in humanitarian crises and war zones. One that has grown tremendously since then, thanks mainly to the many non-governmental organizations that offer nursing care in the most dangerous places on earth.

Hospice & Palliative Care: Dame Cicely Saunders

Dame Cicely Saunders is yet another nurse who completely transformed healthcare when she saw how the dying were being treated and decided she must create a new way to care for them. 

Born in 1918 in England, Saunders grew up in a wealthy family and was born with a crooked spine that caused her chronic pain throughout her life. Though she knew she wanted to become a nurse, her father disapproved and went on to university to study politics and economics instead. However, once the Second World War broke out, she defied her parents and enrolled in nursing school to pursue her dreams. 

She was immediately recognized as being exceptionally bright, but her back pain and disability continued to plague her, and she was told she should quit nursing and pursue an easier life. Though she could have gone on to pursue any number of careers or not worked at all, she eventually decided to become a medical social worker instead.

From her earliest years, Saunder’s disability made her deeply empathize with the “outsiders” of society, and her endless compassion led her to focus on the alleviation of suffering and providing dignity to the sick and dying. In her spare time, she sat with the dying to give comfort and company whenever she could. And in doing so, she would change the course of her life and medical practice forever. 

In 1948, Saunders met a dying patient named David Tasma, a Polish immigrant. He struggled with feelings of deep loneliness and regret because he had few friends in the area, and they spent many hours together. In his last months, he and Saunders discussed life, religion, and the care of the dying, and this relationship became a revelation for her. 

Before his passing, they dreamed together of a place where the dying could be cared for with compassion and where they could find peace in their final days. Tasma passed away, but in his will, he left Saunders a large sum of money and instructions to build their shared dream.

After his passing, Saunders graduated from medical school so she could more effectively challenge the medical establishment at the advice of her physician colleagues. She then began practicing in England, specializing in caring for the terminally ill. 

In her day, the dying were often left on their own and completely ignored, their pain and symptoms woefully undertreated. Though there were a few religious orders that cared for the dying, these types of homes were woefully inadequate to treat the number of patients who needed care. 

She began studying pain management and pursued a research grant to contribute to the body of evidence available to doctors worldwide. She also created a new concept called Total Pain, which encompasses all of the suffering associated with a patient’s physical, psychological, spiritual, and practical challenges.

As a doctor, she demanded that dying patients receive adequate pain control and not be made to wait until they were in agony before receiving their next dose of pain medication (which was thought to be the best practice at the time). Finally, in 1967, Saunders made good on her promise to David Tasma and opened the first hospice center of its kind, St Christopher’s, named after the patron saint of travelers. 

Because of her tireless clinical care, scholarship, and research, hospice care, which is care provided to patients who are estimated to have six months or less to live, is a standard practice offered across the globe. In addition, palliative care medicine, which focuses on the alleviation of symptoms and quality of life for all patients regardless of life expectancy, is now also an established medical and nursing specialty.