A book by University of Virginia nursing professor Arlene Keeling has
recently been published which recognizes the role of nurses during
disasters and praises their contributions to relief efforts. The book,
Nurses on the Front Line: When Disaster Strikes, 1878-2010 is
Keeling's inspiration for the book came when she was at a conference for
the American Association for the History of Nursing during the beginning
of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. Watching numerous news
stories about the efforts of the American Red Cross, the U.S. Public
Health Service, volunteers, and others, she noticed that the nurses'
role was seriously underplayed. "Nurses have been overlooked because
they are doing their routine work," Keeling said. "They're always on the
front line. They're just invisible sometimes."
She began researching the service that nurses gave in various disasters.
Nurses were actively working to restore stability during the yellow
fever epidemic in 1878, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the
attacks on 9/11, and the recent Haitian earthquake, to name a few
incidents. Keeling found stories about nurses that the public seldom
hears.
At the conference, Keeling suggested the creation of a book that would
investigate the role of nurses in past man-made and natural disasters.
She was joined by an enthusiastic colleague, Barbra Mann Wall, a
professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wall and Keeling, as faculty in nursing history, used their connections
to experts to explore the role of nurses during historic disasters. The
resulting book features 13 chapters, each dealing with a different
historic disaster, beginning with yellow fever and ending with the
Haitian earthquake.
Many other writers contributed to the book, including University of
Virginia colleague Audrey Snyder, and John C. Kirchgessner, a former
nursing professor from the same university. The book contains excerpts
from letters, surveys, media reports, and other primary sources, as well
as study questions following each chapter which make the book a useful
tool for professors and teachers. The book examines the changing role of
nurses in the community, the effectiveness of response of care during
crises, and the potential application of various responses to benefit
future efforts. The book gives insight into the rarely-investigated
disaster relief workers, giving greater context for understanding such
disasters. This book helps paint the whole picture.
The book also discusses the importance of race, gender, and class, and
how they affect the care that patients receive. Keeling hopes this will
be applicable in the classroom as well as in future instances of
disaster. Perhaps it will be useful to emergency relief teams which are
studying the effectiveness of past responses.
"As in many other cases, we can learn from the past," Keeling said.