Nurse in 651: The Hôtel-Dieu de Paris

The modern profession was invented remarkably recently, and traceably: a German pastor's training institute at Kaiserswerth in 1836, Florence Nightingale's reformed war hospital at Scutari in 1854, her secular training school at St Thomas' Hospital in London in 1860, and New Zealand's world-first registration law in 1901. Within two generations, a job done by untrained hired watchers became a licensed profession with schools, examinations, registers and an international council of its own.

This page follows that arc from the deaconesses of the early church and the nursing tent of Rufaida Al-Aslamia in seventh-century Medina to today's intensive-care units and nurse practitioners. It covers how people actually become nurses in different countries, what a twelve-hour shift really contains, the craft knowledge nurses pass to each other, who reached the top of the profession, and how much of the work machines can realistically absorb.

How long does it take to become a nurse? Typically three to four years. A bachelor of nursing takes three years in the UK and Australia and four in the US and much of Asia; Germany runs a three-year paid apprenticeship instead. After the degree comes a licensing or registration step — an exam in some countries, credential checks in others — and most new nurses then complete a supervised first year on the wards.