'Attention nurse graduates - with a sense of adventure! Your own horse, your own dog, and a thousand miles of Kentucky mountains. Join my nurse brigade and help save children’s lives. Write to M Breckinridge, Kentucky, USA.'
This advert, posted in British nursing journals in the 1920s, invited nurses to join a new Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in rural Kentucky. The founder of the FNS, Mary Carson Breckinridge, based many elements of her service on the Highland and Island Medical Service (HIMS) in Scotland, which she observed in action during a visit to Scotland in August 1924.
In this special virtual event, hosted by the RCN London Region History of Nursing Group, we hear from the creators of a new documentary by Kentucky Educational Television (KET) about the “angels on horseback” Breckinridge created, set within the context of district and community nursing in the UK.
Professor of Nursing Vari Drennan begins by discussing the development of community nursing in the UK from the nineteenth century until the 1920s, explaining how the term 'community nursing' has been used in the UK to collectively describe three groups of nurses: district nurses, health visitors and school nurses. Next, nursing writer Chris Holme contexualises nursing in remote rural areas in the 1920s, and outlines how these Scottish services inspired the Kentucky Frontier Nursing Service. The event features clips from the KET documentary and explores the process of putting the story together with producer Chelsea Gorham.
Watch the full documentary here: www.pbs.org/video/angels-on-h....
This event was recorded in April 2022.