This weekend sees Scottish Queen’s Nursing get an international audience, with a presentation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America.
“I have a big plastic bag with biscuit tins…”: Queen’s Nurses and Public Health Intervention in Scotland, c. 1950-2000 is the title of a presentation being given at the 89th annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine. The speaker is Dr. Janet Greenlees, a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director, Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), and a member of the QNIS History Group.
Ahead of travelling through to the states, Janet gave us a taster of her presentation and the panel it is part of:
With growing numbers of patients being discharged from hospital shortly after treatment, the home is becoming increasingly important as a site of healthcare provision. Yet this is nothing new. Queen’s Nurses and other District Nurses and Health Visitors had been providing healthcare in the home since the early nineteenth century. In addition to healthcare, a core part of their remit involved public health education. A panel at the 2016 American Association for the History of Medicine is exploring the changing role of the home in shaping public health education in four countries. Dr Janet Greenlees (Glasgow Caledonian University) is exploring the role of the home in shaping the practice of the Queen’s Nurses in Scotland, c. 1950-2000; Dr Ciara Breathnack (University of Limerick) is examining the work of the Queen’s Nurses in Ireland between c. 1890-1935; Professor Rima Apple (University of Wisconsin, Madison) is examining Health Visitors in England in the early nineteenth century and Professor Linda Bryder (University of Auckland, NZ) will discuss the work of the Plunket Nurses in New Zealand during the twentieth century.
It is hoped that not only will this panel highlight the importance of district nurses and health visitors to successful public health education and how the home shaped their practice during the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also their importance as healthcare providers.
The panel takes place on Friday 29th April.
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