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THEN AND NOW: Here's how being a nurse has changed in the last 50 years
THEN AND NOW: Here's how being a nurse has changed in the last 50 years
Allana AkhtarApr 30, 2019, 20:24 IST
Harold Barkley/Getty Images
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Fifty years ago, nurses received much less formal education than they do today. Doctors treated nurses more as assistants and caregivers than respected medical professionals, according to Nurse.org.
Here's a visual look at how being a nurse has changed in the last 50 years.
While considered a prestigious profession today, nurses in the 1960s were "treated as handmaidens of physicians" who were expected to carry out orders without question.
Today, nursing requires extensive training and education.
Nurses told Business Insider reporter Lyndsey Reid the most common way to become a nurse is to obtain a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree. Programs like the BSN help prepare prospective nurses pass the NCLEX-RN exam, a six-hour long standardized test administered nationwide.
From there, nurses must obtain a state license to become a registered nurse. Nurses can then get a master's degree to get more specialized roles, or a doctorate if they wish to teach or do research.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing — the organization that administers national testing — was not even around until 1978. Only 172 college-based nursing programs existed in 1960, compared to the 674 bachelor's programs today.
Nurses also had to care for patients for much longer periods of time than today. 30 years ago, a cataract surgery patient would stay in the hospital for seven days...
Record keeping also became more efficient than it was 50 years ago. After the US government allocated $19.2 billion to increase the use of electronic health records in 2009, digital notes have become commonplace.
Diversity within the field has also increased. Until the 1960s, many hospitals were divided by color. In 1971, the National Black Nurses Association was founded to improve working conditions for black nurses.
...but a gender pay gap still exists among male and female nurses, according to a 2015 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The roles of (registered nurses) are expanding with implementation of the Affordable Care Act and emphasis on team-based care delivery," authors of the study stated. "These results may motivate nurse employers, including physicians, to examine their pay structures and act to eliminate inequities."
