The Roots of a Rebellious Nurse

Abstract

The early life of Florence Schorske Wald, from her birth in 1917 through her first decade as a nurse, provides a clear understanding of the motivation that led her to create the first modern hospice in the United States. Florence's health struggles during childhood and experience growing up in the shadow of her brilliant older brother directed her toward nursing and more broadly created a deep-rooted compassion for the helpless which she maintained throughout her life. Florence's parents' intellectualism and liberal activism planted seeds for her own courage to reject the medical system's growing reliance on technology in the 1940s and 1950s. She spent her early adulthood dissatisfied and lost, searching for a more humane alternative, despite the limitations she felt as a nurse in a rigid medical hierarchy.