Fire in the belly and the professionalization of nurses: a historical analysis of Crohn disease care.

Today, professional nurses around the world are stepping up to meet the needs of individuals with Crohn disease, using their specialized knowledge and skills that demonstrate areas of expertise that have not always existed. The gastrointestinal-specific knowledge being used by these 21st-century nurses exists today because progressive efforts of nurses in previous decades moved the profession of nursing forward. The purpose of this article was to describe and analyze the development of the role of nurses in responding to new challenges patients with Crohn disease face since the emergence of the disease in the early 20th century. The authors used traditional historic research methods to conduct the study. Primary sources include nursing journals and textbooks published in the 20th and 21st centuries and documents archived at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where Burrill B. Crohn conducted his seminal work. The significance of the findings is that the changing role of nurses in caring for patients with Crohn disease mirrors the professionalization of nursing during the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The development of kidney transplant nursing.

An analysis of published literature, interviews with early transplant nurses, and other primary source materials shows how evolving medical treatments for rejection, nurses' ability to learn on the job, and their commitment to patients influenced the development of kidney transplantation as a specialized area of practice. The work of these nurses work is discussed in the context of unfolding nursing specialization at the middle of the twentieth century.

A brief history in nephrology pharmacotherapy.

Advances in drug therapy for patients with kidney disease have contributed to increased exercise capacity, reduced cardiovascular disease, decreased renal bone disease, improved quality of life, and most importantly, reduced morbidity and mortality. New insights into the pathophysiology of chronic kidney disease (CKD) have helped lead to the development of many novel drugs and treatments. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the developments in nephrology pharmacotherapy that occurred during the first 40 years of the American Nephrology Nurses' Association.

Development of the New Zealand nursing workforce: historical themes and current challenges.

Development of the New Zealand nursing workforce has been shaped by social, political, scientific and interprofessional forces. The unregulated, independent and often untrained nurses of the early colonial period were succeeded in the early 1900s by registered nurses, with hospital-based training, working in a subordinate role to medical practitioners. In the mid/late 1900s, greater specialisation within an expanding workforce, restructuring of nursing education, health sector reform, and changing social and political expectations again reshaped nursing practice. Nursing now has areas of increasing autonomy, expanding opportunities for postgraduate education and leadership roles, and a relationship with medicine, which is more collaborative than in the past. Three current challenges are identified for nursing in New Zealand's rapidly evolving health sector; development of a nursing-focused knowledge culture, strengthening of research capacity, and dissemination of new nursing knowledge.

A historical perspective of stomal construction.

Building on past accomplishments in the field of enterostomal therapy has resulted in the high quality of care available today for patients with stomas. Rupert B. Turnbull, Jr., MD, FACS, is the acknowledged "Father of Enterostomal Therapy" because of his pioneer surgical contributions and because of his call to Norma Gill, ET, to lead the technical development under his guidance. This 1993 Turnbull Memorial Lecture deals with historical interactions and developments, as seen by Dr. Turnbull's partner since the early years of the specialty's development.