YOUNGSTOWN — Today marks the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale, also known as the Mother of Modern Medicine.

“Not only was she the founder of modern-day nursing, but she was a pioneer and a heroine especially in the area of infectious disease,” Nancy Wagner, chairwoman of the Youngstown State University nursing department, said. “And as this pandemic continues, Florence would be proud of our nursing graduates.”

Nightingale was born May 12, 1820, and died Aug. 13, 1910.

“Florence Nightingale’s legacy is the foundation for many nursing programs around the world. As 2020 is being hailed as ‘The Year of the Nurse,’ the profession continues to honor Florence Nightingale in a variety of ways, including the continued pursuit of evidence-based practice through nursing research,” Laura Calcagni, assistant nursing professor, said. “Her work truly paved the way for global health care reform. Her influence led to a new respect for the profession, and nursing now is perceived as an honorable calling.”

Nightingale worked to maintain cleanliness in the hospitals to decrease patient infection rates and reduce the spread of diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Nightingale also founded one of the first scientific-based nursing schools, the Nightingale School of Nursing, at St. Thomas Hospital in London and established a training school for nurses.

“Her integral role as a nurse in the Crimean War made nursing a profession. In Youngstown State’s nursing program one of many of Nightingale’s concepts of advocating for her patients is something the program instills into our students on a regular basis,” Wendy Thomas, associate nursing professor, said. “Nightingale was not only a nurse, but a statistician. She documented her nursing interventions and determined that caring for soldiers with baths, fresh linen, fresh air and clean dressings for wounds had better outcomes. Even today as nurses, we use evidence-based practice to have better outcomes to improve care for the patients we serve.”

Nightingale was known as the “lady of the lamp,” carrying her lamp on nightly rounds caring for the soldiers. The symbol of the lamp continues to represent nursing, according to Calcagni and Thomas. The lamp can be seen on the medallions nursing students receive upon graduation.

“For us at Youngstown State University, celebration of Florence Nightingale’s legacy continues yearly at our medallion ceremony with reciting the Nightingale pledge. This year seems extra special with the current pandemic our nurses face, as well as the 200th birthday of Nightingale,” Thomas said.

The Nightingale pledge was written by a committee at the Farrand Training School for Nurses in Detroit in 1893. In the pledge, nursing students vow to do all they can to treat their patients and uphold the standard of the profession.

“Her tireless efforts to provide quality care and the compassion she demonstrated for her patients set an example for all of those following in her footsteps,” Calcagni said. “I am proud to be a part of this noble profession, and continue in Florence Nightingale’s footsteps by preparing the next generation of nurses to provide high-quality patient care.”