Professor Odette Best1
1Wakgun clan member of the Gorreng Gorreng Nation
Abstract:
Many people know Florence Nightingale as the “mother of modern nursing,” but fewer are aware of her research on Indigenous Australians in South and Western Australia. Florence Nightingale–trained nurses arrived in Australia in 1868 with the mandate of reforming nursing at Sydney Hospital. This occurred approximately six years after her research, which sought to address the question of whether it was possible to “civilise the natives without killing them.” By the 1890s, the Nightingale model of nurse training had been operationalised across the continent.
Utilising a Cultural Safety framework, this presentation examines the rise of the nursing profession in Australia, the influence of nursing research on the lives of Indigenous Australians, and why culturally safe nurse practitioners are more essential now than ever.