Angela Boškin

Angela Boškin (1885 to 1977) was the first professionally trained Slovenian nurse and social worker in Yugoslavia. Born in Piuma, then part of Austria-Hungary, she trained as a nurse in Vienna from 1912 and graduated in 1914, then worked in maternal and infant care and as a military nurse in the First World War. After the war she became the first public health nurse in the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, teaching mothers sanitation, childcare and nutrition, and in 1921 she founded the first advisory centre for mothers and babies. Her work in mining towns such as Trbovlje helped lower infant mortality. In 1927 she founded the first professional organization of nurses in the country, and she is honored each year by Angela Boškin Day in Jesenice.