Nurse education qualification courses have graduate status. Traditionally, from the times prior to Florence Nightingale, nursing was seen as an apprenticeship, often undertaken in religious institutes such as convents by young women, although there has always been a proportion of male nurses, especially in mental health services. In 1860 Nightingale set up the first nurse training school at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Nightingale's curriculum was largely base around nursing practice, with instruction focused upon the need for hygiene and task competence. Her methods are reflected in her "Notes on Nursing", (1898). Some other nurses at that time, notably Ethel Gordon Fenwick, were
UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing with Florence Nightingale three years prior. The school was the first nursing school in Western Pennsylvania. In 1942 the school was renamed to Shadyside School of Nursing, four years after the hospital changed its name to Shadyside Hospital. In December 2009, the UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing received an endowment of $900,000, the largest donation in the school's history, from 1939 alumnae Jane Pesci. The UPMC Shadyside School of Nursing offers a diploma in nursing. The school has a 18-month, full-time daylight program and 3-year, part-time evening/weekend program. The school is accredited by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission