History of nursing pooled and with this Nightingale decided to use the money to lay the foundations for a training school at St Thomas' Hospital. In 1860, the training for the first batch of nurses began; upon graduation from the school, these nurses used to be called 'Nightingales'. Nightingale's revelation of the abysmal nursing care afforded soldiers in the Crimean War energized reformers. Queen Victoria in 1860 ordered a hospital to be built to train Army nurses and surgeons, the Royal Victoria Hospital. The hospital opened in 1863 in Netley and admitted and cared for military patients. Beginning in 1866, nurses were formally
Florence Nightingale Medal Florence Nightingale Medal At the Eighth International Conference of Red Cross Societies in London in 1907, the assembled delegates decided to create a commemorative International Nightingale Medal to be awarded to those distinguished in the nursing field. Subsequently, the Florence Nightingale Medal was instituted in 1912 by the International Committee of the Red Cross. It is the highest international distinction a nurse can achieve and is awarded to nurses or nursing aides for "exceptional courage and devotion to the wounded, sick or disabled or to civilian victims of a conflict or disaster" or "exemplary services or a creative and pioneering