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Summary
Virginia
Henderson graduated from the Army School of Nursing, Washington,
D.C., in 1921. She is part of the "Columbia school"
of nursing theory, having graduated from Teachers College, Columbia
University, with a M.A. degree in nursing education, and having been
a member of the faculty from 1930 to 1948. She wrote and/or edited
several editions of the The Principles and Practice of Nursing, along
with Harmer in the early years of the fundamentals text and Nite in
the later years.
Virginia
Henderson defined nursing as "assisting individuals to gain independence in
relation to the performance of activities contributing to health or its
recovery" (Henderson, 1966, p. 15).
She categorized nursing activities
into 14 components, based on human needs. She described the nurse's role
as substitutive (doing for the person), supplementary (helping the person), or
complementary (working with the person), with the goal of helping the person
become as independent as possible.
Her
famous definition of nursing was one of the first statements clearly
delineating nursing from medicine:
"The
unique function of the nurs is to assist the individual, sick or
well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health
or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided
if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge. And to do
this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as
possible" (Henderson, 1966, p. 15). She was one of the first
nurses to point out that nursing does not consist of merely
following physician's orders.
References:
Henderson, V. (1960). Basic
principles of nursing care. Geneva: International Council of
Nurses.
Henderson, V. (1966). The
nature of nursing. NY: Macmillan.
Henderson, V. (1991). The
nature of nursing--Reflections after 25 years. NY: Macmillan.
Summary
by Becky Sisk, PhD, RN Students
-- As with all of the articles on NurseScribe, consider this to be a
secondary source and use the primary sources in the references
to write a paper or make a presentation. |
