Nursing

Nursing is the health care profession that focuses on the protection, promotion and optimization of health and human functioning, the prevention of illness and injury, the facilitation of healing and the alleviation of suffering. Nurses practice in many specialties with varying levels of certification and responsibility, and they make up the largest component of most healthcare environments. They develop a plan of care and work with physicians, physician assistants, therapists, patients, families and other team members, and they educate the public and promote health and wellness. In the United Kingdom and the United States, clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners diagnose health problems and prescribe medications and other therapies, depending on regulations that vary by state. Historians struggle to say which care in antiquity counts as nursing, and in the Middle Ages members of religious orders often provided nursing-like care. Florence Nightingale laid the foundations of professional nursing after the Crimean War, and the Nightingale model of nursing education, tied to a hospital and medical school, spread widely in Europe and North America after 1870.