2020_10_21_ENF_protagonistas

The School of Nursing of the University of Navarra has promoted an autobiographicalexhibition and historical objects to make visible the nursing profession in the International Year of Nurses and Midwives, which is celebrated this 2020 and that the WHO has extended until July 2021. The Red Cross of Navarra is also participating in the event, Clínica Universidad de Navarrathe Ethnographic Museum of the Kingdom of Pamplona and high school Official Nursing of the Comunidad Foral.

The sample, entitled "Protagonists", includes autobiographical references and historical objects related to the performance of the profession -such as boxes, jars, flasks, old tools and even devices such as an old delivery stretcher-. It will be on display at available, with limited seating capacity, at the Library Services Central of campus until December 21.

"It is a bibliographic exhibition with a historical approach whose distinctive point is that the journey through time takes place through the self-narrative look of its protagonists," explains its manager, Professor and Vice Dean of Students and Office of Academic Affairs of the School of Nursing, Ana Choperena.

"When we thought of this action," says the professor, "the COVID crisis, which has given the profession great visibility, had not yet occurred. However, we still think that the International Year is a very good excuse to highlight the contribution of nursing professionals themselves to development health care, as we understand it today".

A profession "built" on the battlefield

Among the outstanding figures at exhibition are the American nurses Mary Livermore (1820-1905) and Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). Both participated in the American Civil War (1861-1865) and were the first authors of works that vindicated the role of women nurses in armed conflicts, such as MyStory of the War and Little Women. About this biographical bequest , the curator of the exhibition, Professor Ana Choperena, considers that "the experience of dramatic events excites reflection staff after some time and, on many occasions, gives rise to retrospective autobiographical accounts that reinforce the collective conscience of a profession".

At sample another of the most relevant biographies is that of Florence Nightingale, precursor of modern nursing. "Nightingale is considered a powerful nursing reformer who brought order and science to the civilian, military and religious nursing that had been developing until then. Her book, Notes onNursing (1860), provided the theoretical foundation of her time for English nursing and for nursing that subsequently developed in the rest of the world," concludes Choperena.

The sample will remain open and with free access at schedule from 8 am to 9 pm. From Monday to Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays.