Publisher's Synopsis
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: A Florence Nightingale Biography
Any comprehensive list of the most important personalities in the history of medicine would include the name, "Florence Nightingale" among them. "The Lady with the Lamp," as she is known, is recognized as the world's most famous nurse, and the founder of nursing as a profession. She holds pride of place alongside titans of medicine, which usually includes Edward Jenner ("The Father of Immunology"), Sigmund Freud ("The Father of Psychoanalysis"), and Nobel Prize winners, Marie Curie (famous for her pioneering work in radiotherapy), Alexander Fleming ("The Father of Antibiotics") and Joseph Murray (a key figure in transplantation and reconstructive surgery).
But along with that claim to fame is a less notable distinction and a disservice to her legacy. Culture vultures would be familiar with her name in the context of "The Florence Nightingale Effect" or "The Florence Nightingale Syndrome." Rather than being a true "syndrome" in the medical sense, it is a trope - a common theme - seen in popular culture, wherein caregivers (especially nurses) and their patients find romantic and/or erotic attraction with each other during their interactions of treatment, vulnerability and healing. As described with urgent authority by iconic movie character, Doc Brown of the blockbuster Back to the Future films - "That's the Florence Nightingale effect. It happens in hospitals when nurses fall in love with their patients..."
There are very real and very many reasons why Florence Nightingale should be admired and why her name has been written into legend. But to attribute to her falsities - whether they be flattering or not - is an injustice to her memory, and an injustice to anyone who looks up to her in search of a fallible, human role model that anyone can aspire to become. To ground her image in reality, to bring her closer to humanity, is to understand that we can all dream of and work towards the great deeds she was able to accomplish in her lifetime.
