Celebrating Eva Noles......

The first African-American woman to train and graduate as a Registered Nurse in Buffalo, New York, who went on to become a Nursing Educator and the Director of Nursing at the world- renowned Roswell Park Cancer Institute.Eva M. Noles is a registered nurse, a nursing educator, and a former Director of Nursing at Buffalo, New York’s world-renowned Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The first African-American nurse to train in Buffalo, Eva actually retired twice only to come back to train many people how to provide various levels of healthcare. She was with Roswell Park Cancer Institute Park for over 30 years, serving in many capacities.Eva Malinda Noles was born Eva Bateman in Cleveland, Ohio on April 5, 1919. 

Her family settled in Buffalo, New York in1928. She graduated from Hutchinson Central High School in 1932. After high school, Eva began thinking about her future. For a young African-American woman in the 1900s, options were usually limited to such things as house cleaning, cooking or child-rearing.As part of a dare from a friend, Eva courageously applied and was accepted to the E. J. Meyer Memorial Hospital School of Nursing (now Erie County Medical Center) after high school. Although she was admitted into the nursing program, Eva was not fully accepted in the school and encountered many subtle forms of racial prejudice, even right up to graduation.In 1940, she finished at the top of her class and became the first African-American woman to be trained as a registered nurse in Buffalo. However, prejudice didn’t end with her diploma from the school of nursing. It followed her into her first years of working at her profession.

After establishing herself in the field, she went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing in 1962 and a Master of Arts degree in Education in 1967 from the University at Buffalo.After stints at EJ Meyer Memorial, Sisters and Columbus Hospitals, Eva was hired as a staff nurse at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in 1945. Eva credits Roswell Park in allowing her to realize her professional aspirations.Eva founded the New York State Nurses Week in 1970, which has been celebrated ever since from May 24th to the 30th.She climbed through the ranks, breaking race barriers at every step, until she became the director of nursing in 1971.

Over this time, Eva had opportunities to work with renowned Roswell Park doctors and researchers.Eva Noles dedicated her life to nursing, but also to community service and outreach. She served on many local and national committees, including the NYS Board of Nursing and the  American Nurses Association. She also served on the Buffalo General Hospital Board of Trustees and the Community Mental Health.She has received many awards for her dedicated community service, including the Uncrowned Queens Institute’s Culture Keepers award for outstanding contributions to African-American culture in Western New York, which she received in 2002.Eva is the author of several publications, including Buffalo’s Blacks: Talking Proud and Black History: A Different Approach. Eva credits the lack of real and truthful history collection and story-telling on the local African-American experience as her reasons of becoming an author several years ago. In 1974, Eva retired from Roswell Park.

Despite retirement, however, Eva continued working with the federal government that trained nurse practitioners, as well as joining Medical Personal Pool as a home care supervisor, where she was later appointed as a staff developer for the firmEva, who now resides in Williamsville, New York, continues to be an inspiration for many people. She continues to be referred to as the consummate example of inspiration and determination for many.Even after her retirement, Eva still spends much of her time helping others. Struggling against impressive odds and coming out on top has been a pattern for her, but she insists it has been more than a matter of luck.Many people throughout the Buffalo-community, in an effort to thank her for her years of service in the field of health and her commitment in making the city that she loves a better place to live for so many, have organized efforts to create a college scholarship in her name, that will be awarded annually to a deserving student aspiring for a career in health.

Roswell Park will also name a nursing training room at its campus in her honor

Great gift books for the nurse

1. Bedlam Among the Bedpans | Humor in Nursing – Amy Y. Young
Ever had a bad day or needed a good ‘nursing humor’ laugh (you know – the kind of humor only a nurse could appreciate)? How about just bonding over the commonalities between nurses, or the shared humor amongst specific areas of nursing (ED, OR, ICU, Med-surg, etc)? This book is for you. What’s also great is the format of the book. It comes in short stories, as well as a detailed index that helps if you’re pressed for time, or are looking for something specific to laugh about.
2. Who Moved My Cheese? – Spencer Johnson, M.D.
OK. OK. This is NOT about mice. Well, maybe indirectly. This book is about change. Change? What’s that? Nurses have no idea what change is right? I mean we still wear the white cap and skirt right? We still have all of our IV medications dripping out of a glass bottle right? We still have to count drops when infusing IV medication right? *UH-hum* (clearing my throat) We Nurses are ALL about change! This book discusses the differences in how one deals with change. I must tell you, once you read this you can and will envision someone you work with or know to be one of the 4 characters in this book. I promise you. After you read this book, you will forever be changed on ..err.. Uhh Change. Remember – change is the only constant thing in our profession.
3. The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
This amazing man was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This book is full of excerpts from his ‘Last Lecture’ at the university titled: “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. If you have EVER met an obstacle on your way to a goal – ANY goal. This book is for you. This guy did not know how to give up, and even when faced with the most dire of situations, he remained poised, positive and full of energy. Take lessons from this man and how he lead his life. He sadly passed away, but left an astounding legacy that truly enriches the lives of everyone around it.
4. Always Looking Up | The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist – Michael J. Fox
Ever had a bad day? Ever think you got it bad? Ever think things are so bad that you just want to give up, give in, or heck just maybe try tomorrow? I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t know something about this amazing actor turned activist and inspirer. This book is a brief synopsis of his journey through Parkinson’s disease and the gifts it has brought him. Yes, you read that right – the gifts it has brought him.
OK, so I must confess. I’m a huge believer in the human condition. These list of books show you that I am all about not giving up on what you want, not giving in to the hype of discontent, and honestly looking in the mirror for all your answers. As a nurse we see some of the most wonderful and most devastating things life can offer, we are a truly blessed bunch of professionals.  My hope is that maybe one of these books can help you navigate through that rip-roaring rollercoaster of life in and out of work.
Here are some other ‘good stuff’ books I highly recommend if you have the time or the inclination:
A complaint free world – Will Bowen : learn how to complaint free. Yes, it is possible.
What it takes to be #1 – Vince Lombardi, Jr. : learn from the best, on how to be the best.
Way of the peaceful warrior – Dan Millman : what really is happiness? Are you sure about your answer?
Anything written by Mitch Albom: All his books say something about our priorities in life. Be sure yours isn’t work.

• ‘For one more day’
• ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’
• ‘The five people you meet in heaven’

Anything written by Malcolm Gladwell: these are just things that make you go hmm about our society.

• ‘Blink’
• ‘The Tipping Point’
• ‘Outliers’

Originating Source borrowed from...

Scrubs

When you’re navigating the sometimes rough waters of your nursing job, you could use a little guidance, a little pick-me-up, a little hand-holding…we’ve all been there.

Any book on this list would make a great gift for any nurse on your team — or for your entire team (the quirky Don’t Try This at Home is only $5, for example).

 top picks:

1. Your First Year as a Nurse: Making the Transition from Total Novice to Successful Professional by Donna Cardillo, RN

2. Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul by Jack Canfield, LeAnn Thieman, LPN, and others

3. RNotes: Nurse’s Clinical Pocket Guide by Ehren Myers

4. Tending Lives: Nurses on the Medical Front by Echo Heron

5. A Nurse’s Story by Tilda Shalof

6. Inspired Nurse by Rich Bluni, RN

7. Don’t Try This at Home by Brady Pregerson, MD

Original Source borrowed from...Scrubs 

A list of rules for nurses…from 1887...........

Image: George Marks | Retrofile RF | Getty 

Whether you’re a new nurse or a seasoned nurse, it’s always intriguing to take a look back at the history of the nursing profession.
This list provided by carenurse.com illuminates the day-to-day tasks and regulations pertaining to the life of a nurse in 1887—before routine charting was even invented.

1887 Nursing Job Description

In addition to caring for your 50 patients, each bedside nurse will follow these regulations:
1. Daily sweep and mop the floors of your ward, dust the patient’s furniture and window sills.
2. Maintain an even temperature in your ward by bringing in a scuttle of coal for the day’s business.
3. Light is important to observe the patient’s condition. Therefore, each day fill kerosene lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks.
4. The nurse’s notes are important in aiding your physician’s work. Make your pens carefully; you may whittle nibs to your individual taste.
5. Each nurse on day duty will report every day at 7 a.m. and leave at 8 p.m., except on the Sabbath, on which day she will be off from 12 noon to 2 p.m.
6. Graduate nurses in good standing with the director of nurses will be given an evening off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if you go regularly to church.
7. Each nurse should lay aside from each payday a goodly sum of her earnings for her benefits during her declining years, so that she will not become a burden. For example, if you earn $30 a month, you should set aside $15.
8. Any nurse who smokes, uses liquor in any form, gets her hair done at a beauty shop or frequents dance halls will give the director of nurses good reason to suspect her worth, intentions and integrity.
9. The nurse who performs her labors [and] serves her patients and doctors faithfully and without fault for a period of five years will be given an increase by the hospital administration of five cents per day.

Term "Diet Kitchen" Handed Down from Training Schools for Nurses Still In Use Today

Term "Diet Kitchen" Handed Down from Training Schools for Nurses Still In Use Today

Early  Diet Kitchen Instruction for Nurses 

Diet Kitchen was a separate subject taught in the early Training Schools for Nurses of the late 1800's. Early nurses prepared all meals for all patients and much time was spent learning to prepare special diets  in the Diet Kitchen. The nurses were taught Diet Kitchen by other nurses in the early Training programs until there were trained Dietitians in the 1900's. The Diet Kitchen instruction started with basic cooking the first year and continued throughout the length of the program. From the recipes in the early Diet Kitchen textbooks, the nurses were taught how to prepare an extensive list of complicated diets with wide selections. Extensive instruction was also given for preparing diets for children and infants. Much emphasis was placed on the importance of a healthy diet, presentation of meals and the preparation of  many  deserts and beverages. 

This Graduation Certificate from the Connecticut Training School for Nurses in 1894 shows "Miss Pirce" (Rhode Island) made 5/5 on her "Reports of Diet Kitchen work."  

The Connecticut Training School for Nurses 1894

                                  

By 1916 all states had State Board examinations allowing the Trained Nurse to become a Registered Nurse (RN) provided the nurse could pass the State Board Exam. Nursing had come a long way in such a few short years but there was a big difference in what was being taught in Diet Kitchen (all subjects) by the different schools. The American Journal of Nursing was in full swing by this time and played a huge part in standardizing the education and training of early nurses. The AJN, founded in 1900, printed reports from each Training School.and helped the National League for Nursing Education which had been formed in 1912 (later to become the (NLN) and the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses collect the data.

One such report in the A.J.N.that helped standardize the early Diet Kitchen training. 

"The methods of instruction employed in hospital diet kitchens vary to such an extent that it is difficult to find a beginning for the discussion of this important subject. As a rule the superintendent of nurses outlines, in a general way, the course of instruction in dietetics which she desires for the nurses of her training school, but the details of the work and the methods of instruction are usually arranges and worked out by the dietitian who has charge of the diet kitchen. Since dietitians differ greatly in their methods, the instruction offered by various hospitals is apt to be dissimilar, and even in the same hospital methods are constantly changing with each new dietitian. The main object of the dietitian is to give the nurse a through training in invalid cookery and sufficient knowledge of dietetics to enable her to pass the state board examination when she graduates. With these objects in view, we will now discuss some of the methods used to impart this knowledge to the nurse..."

DIET KITCHEN METHODS OF INSTRUCTION By Alice Urquhart Fewell Santa Monica, California. The American Journal of Nursing, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Nov., 1916), p 105

Ninety Four years later nurses don't have to cook for the patients.(though we will gladly reheat food in the microwave)

The signs of the Diet Kitchen and early training remain. In the older hospitals that have not been remodeled yet, even hospitals built through the 1950's, you can find the Diet Kitchen. As the cooking for patients by nurses phased out the Diet Kitchen got smaller until by the 40' and 50's the room for the diet kitchen contained only a stove, refrigerator, sink and cabinet space. There are many sayings and phrases that have been handed down since the early days of Nurses Training (after all, some of them have not closed the doors since they opened) but the term Diet Kitchen is probably the most common. Today most older nurses in the hospital refers to any room that has anything to do with patient food as "The Diet Kitchen"

                                                                                       Vernon Dutton, RN

The Army Nurse Corps Association........click here

Links

Army/Military Nursing Army Nurse Corps Navy Nurse Corps Association ANC History Society of Air Force Nurses ANC Recruiting WIMSA ROTC Nurse Program Vietnam Women's Memorial Project Federal Nurses Association   Army Medical Department AMEDD Home Page/Army Surgeon General's Office AMEDD Center and School AMEDD Corps Home Pages Army The Army Home Page Army Knowledge Online Army News Army Welfare and Recreation Service Retirement Defense Finance and Acounting Service Department of Veterans Affairs Miscellaneous AMEDD Museum Gift Shop Army & Air Force Exchange Service Defense Commissary Agency Women's International Center

Biographies of the Superintendents and Chiefs of the ANC

Brigadier General Lillian Dunlap 14th Chief, Army Nurse Corps © Mary T. Sarnecky Lillian Dunlap, the oldest in a family of five girls, was born on 20 January 1922 in Mission, Texas to Ira and Mary Schermerhorn Dunlap. In 1939 when she was seventeen years old, Dunlap entered the Santa Rosa Hospital School of Nursing in San Antonio, Texas. Her senior year of nurses' training coincided with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That event, with its sweeping tide of patriotism, motivated the young graduate to join the Army Nurse Corps to help "win the war." On 16 November 1942, Dunlap reported to Brooke General Hospital at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Her desire to serve overseas was realized quickly in March 1943 when Dunlap and 23 other Army nurses from Brooke began their trek westward to join the 59th Station Hospital. Unbeknownst to them, the nurses' destination was the Southwest Pacific. The settings for Dunlap's World War II service were New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, and finally, the Philippines. While in New Guinea, the young Army nurse met and fell in love with a paratrooper. They had plans to marry but tragedy struck when he died executing a jump over Manila in the battle for the Philippines. Dunlap traveled back to the states in 1945 and for a while was incapacitated with a bout of malaria. After her recovery, Dunlap returned to Brooke General Hospital and served on the women's ward, the officers' ward, and later the surgical research unit which at that time focused its efforts on the treatment of osteomyeleitis. In 1949, she transferred to the hospital at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas and served there as assistant chief nurse and later chief nurse. Since Camp Chaffee was being inactivated, Dunlap remained there only six months before being ordered to Fort Hood, Texas. After a very brief stint at Fort Hood, Dunlap began a four month temporary duty assignment at Fourth U.S. Army in San Antonio. There she assumed recruiting responsibilities primarily seeking out nurses for reserve units. She briefly returned to Fort Hood and served there until September 1953 at which time she matriculated at Incarnate Word College in San Antonio to pursue her undergraduate degree. After completing school in 1954, Dunlap went overseas to serve as a head nurse at the 1,000 bed 98th General Hospital in Neubrücke, Germany. Upon her return to the states, a short seven month assignment at Fort Jackson, South Carolina was followed by an assignment as a student in Master of Hospital Administration course jointly sponsored by the Army and Baylor University at the Medical Field Service School (MFSS) in San Antonio, Texas. Dunlap subsequently completed the program's required year residency in administration at Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado and returned to MFSS to serve in several key faculty roles. Another overseas tour was on the horizon in 1965 when Dunlap accepted a transfer to Okinawa where she served as Chief of Nursing Service at the Army hospital there. However, like many of Dunlap's tours, her assignment in Okinawa was curtailed. After eleven months, the Chief of the Army Nurse Corps requested that Dunlap be returned to the states to be Chief of the Army Nurse Corps Assignment Branch in the Office of the Surgeon General in Washington, D.C. This assignment, which coincided with the intensive Vietnam War buildup years of 1966 to 1968, presented numerous staffing challenges, to wit, the replacement of up to 900 Army nurses a year in Vietnam--an unending process. "Fortunately," Dunlap observed, with few exceptions, Army Nurse Corps officers "volunteered to go to Vietnam." Dunlap's next assignment after a brief interval as Special Assistant to the Chief of the Army Nurse Corps was as chief nurse of the First U.S. Army. Three years later, she became chief nurse of Walter Reed General Hospital and director of nursing activities of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dunlap had but a few months under her belt at Walter Reed when the Army Chief of Staff, General William C. Westmoreland, informed her that she had been selected to be the next chief of the Army Nurse Corps with the accompanying promotion to brigadier general. On 31 August 1975, Brigadier General Lillian Dunlap retired from the Army after 33 years of service and returned to live in San Antonio, Texas. However, she remained active in an vast array of endeavors. Along with retired Major General Spurgeon Neel, Dunlap became a guiding light for the development of the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) Museum at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. She was instrumental in establishing a master of science curriculum within the nursing program at Incarnate Word College and her involvement resulted in the endowment of the Brigadier General Lillian Dunlap Professional Chair in Nursing at the institution. Dunlap served with the United Way, the Texas Governor's Commission for Women, the board of the National Bank of Fort Sam Houston, the Board of Directors for GPM Life Insurance Company, and with the Texas National Guard Armory Board. She is an advisor to the Army Nurse Corps Foundation and has made so many other generous contributions that it would be impossible to enumerate all of her activities. The Dunlap lecture, an annual keynote address at the 7th MEDCOM Military Medical Surgical Clinical Congress in Garmisch Germany, was established in her honor in 1988. Most recently she has been accorded the signal honor of being elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.1 Dunlap's sustained support of the previous Corps Chiefs' insistence upon the baccalaureate degree as the minimum entry level once again placed the Corps on the cutting edge of national nursing and her implementation of the Contemporary Practice Program ushered the Army Nurse Corps into the modern area. Photo of General Dunlap Lillian Dunlap, interview by Cindy Gurney, February 1987; "Official Biography, Lillian Dunlap, September 1971," typewritten document; "Army Nurse Corps Assignment Officer Chosen," 22 August 1966, News Release No. 238-66; Ann Tibbets, "Female General Recalls Army Career," Recorder-Times (2 July 1987): 10, newsclipping; "BG Lillian Dunlap," n.d., typewritten manuscript; "HQ 7th Medical Command Public Affairs Office, Dunlap Lecture," n.d.; Nancy Beasley, "BG Dunlap-Nursing's Lone Star," n.d., newsclipping; "Dedication of the Brigadier General Lillian Dunlap Endowed Professorial Chair in Nursing," printed program; Questionnaire, LTC Mabel Hammarlund to MAJ Lillian Dunlap, about 1961; all in ANC Archives, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.

Mrs. Dita H. Kinney 1st Superintendent, Army Nurse Corps © Mary T. Sarnecky Dita Hopkins Kinney was born in New York City on 13 September 1855 to C.T. and Myra Burnett Hopkins, Kinney studied as a young woman at Mills College in California. She married in 1874, gave birth to one son and was widowed only four years later. She then attended the Massachusetts General Hospital training school, graduating in 1892. After graduation, Kinney devoted her time to teaching child care in New England and also gave classes to prepare assistants to trained nurses. Kinney also did private duty nursing and worked in several institutions--the Almshouse on Long Island in Boston Harbor, the City and County Hospital of St. Paul, Minnesota and the French Hospital in San Francisco, California.1 On 10 September 1898, Kinney signed a contract with the Army and began her career at the general hospital at the Presidio of San Francisco, California. It was a false start. Just six days later the Army annulled Kinney's contract, releasing her to superintend a Red Cross convalescent home for soldiers in Oakland, California.2 Soon this home closed and Kinney returned to French Hospital for eight months. "Finding conditions impossible" there, she signed another contract on 18 October 1899 and worked as a nurse in the operating room at the Presidio of San Francisco.3 The Army then assigned Kinney as the chief nurse of a proposed 1,800 bed hospital which would be located at Nagasaki, Japan. The hospital mission would be to care for the allied casualties from the Boxer uprising in China. When events caused plans for that hospital to be abandoned, Kinney reported as chief nurse at the general hospital for consumptives at Fort Bayard, New Mexico. After a brief sojourn in the southwest, she traveled east to work with Anita Newcomb McGee in the surgeon general's office and accepted the superintendent's position. After just three years of service in the Army, Kinney assumed the responsibilities of the superintendent of the Corps on 16 March 1901.4 Following her resignation as superintendent in July 1909, Kinney pursued postgraduate studies at Massachusetts General Hospital and subsequently became superintendent of a hospital in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She was forced to abandon her work in 1914 due to "breaking health" which "forbade exertion." During World War I, Kinney taught Red Cross Home Nursing classes in Maine. She died in Bangor, Maine, on 16 April 1921 and was buried next to her husband in Trinity Cemetery in New York City.5 "Mrs. Dita H. Kinney," American Journal of Nursing 1 (March 1901), 403-404; Eileen M. Danis & Rosemary T. McCarthy, "Dita Hopkins Kinney, 1854-1921," in Vern L. Bullough, Olga Maranjian Church, & Alice P. Stein, American Nursing, A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1988): 201-204. Ibid.; Julia C. Stimson & Associates, "History and Manual of the Army Nurse Corps," The Army Medical Bulletin Number 41 (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: Medical Field Service School, 1937): 86. "Mrs. Dita H. Kinney," 403; Stimson & Associates, 86. Dita H. Kinney, "Department of Army Nursing," The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review 26 (April 1901), 212. "Nursing News & Announcements, Obituaries," American Journal of Nursing 21 (July 1921): 764; "Further Information About Dita H. Kinney," American Journal of Nursing 21 (November 1921): 122.

National Nurses Week begins each year on May 6th and ends on May 12th, Florence Nightingale's birthday. These permanent dates enhance planning and position National Nurses Week as an established recognition event. As of 1998, May 8 was designated as National Student Nurses Day, to be celebrated annually. And as of 2003, National School Nurse Day is celebrated on the Wednesday within National Nurses Week (May 6-12) each year.

The nursing profession has been supported and promoted by the American Nurses Association (ANA) since 1896. Each of ANA's state and territorial nurses associations promotes the nursing profession at the state and regional levels. Each conducts celebrations on these dates to recognize the contributions that nurses and nursing make to the community.

The ANA supports and encourages National Nurses Week recognition programs through the state and district nurses associations, other specialty nursing organizations, educational facilities, and independent health care companies and institutions.

A Brief History of National Nurses Week

1953 Dorothy Sutherland of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare sent a proposal to President Eisenhower to proclaim a "Nurse Day" in October of the following year. The proclamation was never made.

1954 National Nurse Week was observed from October 11 - 16. The year of the observance marked the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale's mission to Crimea. Representative Frances P. Bolton sponsored the bill for a nurse week. Apparently, a bill for a National Nurse Week was introduced in the 1955 Congress, but no action was taken. Congress discontinued its practice of joint resolutions for national weeks of various kinds.

1972 Again a resolution was presented by the House of Representatives for the President to proclaim "National Registered Nurse Day." It did not occur.

1974 In January of that year, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) proclaimed that May 12 would be "International Nurse Day." (May 12 is the birthday of Florence Nightingale.) Since 1965, the ICN has celebrated "International Nurse Day."

1974 In February of that year, a week was designated by the White House as National Nurse Week, and President Nixon issued a proclamation.

1978 New Jersey Governor Brendon Byrne declared May 6 as "Nurses Day." Edward Scanlan, of Red Bank, N.J., took up the cause to perpetuate the recognition of nurses in his state. Mr. Scanlan had this date listed in Chase's Calendar of Annual Events. He promoted the celebration on his own.

1981 ANA, along with various nursing organizations, rallied to support a resolution initiated by nurses in New Mexico, through their Congressman, Manuel Lujan, to have May 6, 1982, established as "National Recognition Day for Nurses."

1982 In February, the ANA Board of Directors formally acknowledged May 6, 1982 as "National Nurses Day." The action affirmed a joint resolution of the United States Congress designating May 6 as "National Recognition Day for Nurses."

1982 President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation on March 25, proclaiming "National Recognition Day for Nurses" to be May 6, 1982.

1990 The ANA Board of Directors expanded the recognition of nurses to a week-long celebration, declaring May 6 - 12, 1991, as National Nurses Week.

1993 The ANA Board of Directors designated May 6 - 12 as permanent dates to observe National Nurses Week in 1994 and in all subsequent years.

1996 The ANA initiated "National RN Recognition Day" on May 6, 1996, to honor the nation's indispensable registered nurses for their tireless commitment 365 days a year. The ANA encourages its state and territorial nurses associations and other organizations to acknowledge May 6, 1996 as "National RN Recognition Day."

1997 The ANA Board of Directors, at the request of the National Student Nurses Association, designated May 8 as National Student Nurses Day.

History of National Nurses' Week.(a timeline of the development of National Nurses Week): An article from: MedSurg Nursing