[Personality and work of Florence Nightingale--creator of modern nursing and public health pioneer].
BACKGROUND
Through her "calling to service", Florence Nightingale worked as a nurse, manager, researcher, reformer, writer and teacher. The aim of this study is to present Florence Nightingale in all these roles, pointing out all complexity and multidimensionality of nursing profession.
Having come from an aristocratic English family, Florence Nightingale was very educated She considered knowledge as a way, and statistical method as an instrument for discovering the rules of the world. Her work during the Crimean War was one of her most important deeds and made her a national hero. After the war, she devoted herself to reforming nursing and public health in Britain and in the world. Since she was bedbound after the Crimean War due to her illness, writing became the most powerful tool she had in achieving her goals. Florence Nightingale wrote many letters to politicians and statesmen, many newspaper and scientific articles. One of her greatest works "Notes on Nursing" was not written only for nurses, but for all women. By founding Nursing school at St. Thomas Hospital in 1860 she aspired to train and educate nurses.


CONCLUSIONS
Her complete and lifelong devotion to the ,,calling" directed all her activities, contributions and achievements, not only towards nursing but also towards statistics, epidemiology, public health and social sciences.
Katedra za zdravstvenu negu, Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Medicinski fakultet. milutind@uns.ac.rs
Dragana
D
Milutinović
Sanja
S
Sumonja
Jovan
J
Maksimović
D047849:Crimean War; D005260:Female; D006676:History of Nursing; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D011637:Public Health Nursing / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom