Ida Jean Orlando (1926-2007) was a prominent psychiatric nurse, theorist, consultant, and researcher. She is internationally recognized for developing the Theory of the deliberative nursing process. His ideas contributed to arousing interest in the nurse-patient relationship and the role of professional nursing.
She was the first nurse to take a scientific approach to the profession. Her research and consulting work also allowed to expand the knowledge that complements the role of nurse, in order to differentiate it from medicine..
Orlando was the first psychiatric nurse in the United States to receive a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
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Ida Jean Orlando was born in August 1926 in New Jersey. His parents Nicholas and Antoinette Orlando, immigrants of humble origin who had 5 other children. A few years later, the family moved to Kings County, New York, where his father became a mechanic and his mother became a homemaker..
Orlando wanted from his early youth to study nursing, but his mother was opposed to his leaving home without having previously married, as was the tradition of the time..
When she finally obtained her parents' permission, she began her studies at the New York Medical College School of Nursing, establishing her faculty at Lower Fifth Avenue Surgical Hospital..
He started his professional career when he received his diploma in 1947, the year in which he entered the obstetrics area of Shore Road Hospital. As he felt that the patients did not receive good care in that health center, he soon decided to change to another institution.
In the meantime, she was studying at St. John's University in Brooklyn, New York, and in 1951, she received her BA in public health nursing. He had thought that dedicating himself to this area would allow him to focus more on the patient's needs and less on the protocol, however, to his disappointment it did not turn out to be the case..
Continuing her search, she entered the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York, where three years later she obtained a Master's degree in mental health nursing..
From 1954 to 1961 she taught in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing at Yale University, as associate professor and director of the graduate program in mental health and psychiatric nursing..
During his years at Yale he also devoted himself to research. Her main project aimed to integrate mental health concepts into a basic nursing curriculum, for which she had to process more than 2000 interactions between nurses and patients..
His findings allowed him to develop his main legacy: the Theory of the deliberative nursing process. It was initially presented in the form of a report and it was in 1961 that a more complete version was published.
In mid-1961 she married Robert J. Pelletier and moved to the Boston area. In addition, she soon retired from Yale University to begin her consulting phase..
It was in 1962 at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts when she began providing advice in the area of clinical nursing. That same year, she was awarded a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), making her the first psychiatric nurse in the United States to obtain that grant..
During this period she devoted herself to studying in an exhaustive way the deliberative nursing process through the project called 'Two nursing systems in a psychiatric hospital'. It was the first time in history that the nursing process was studied with a scientific approach.
In parallel, he developed an educational program with his deliberative model, in which he instructed supervisors and the nursing staff. The idea was to teach them to implement the process, understand the needs of patients and improve interactions with them.
Your book The discipline and teaching of the nursing process, which included the results of his study, was published in 1972. Since that year, and for almost a decade, he has carried out dissemination and training programs on his theory..
In total there were more than 60 seminars in the United States and Canada. His dedication to consulting continued in the United States and spread beyond its borders.
Since 1984, Orlando tried twice to implement its knowledge in two American health centers, whose staff had a different socioeconomic profile, as well as that of their patients.
They were the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts and the Graebler Children's Unit in the same entity. Unfortunately, both institutions had to close.
Despite retiring in 1992, Orlando continued to mentor and consult with colleagues and alumni. That year he received the award of Legend of Life in Nursing, which was awarded by the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
At the age of 81, in November 2007, one of the main researchers and promoters of the nurse-patient relationship passed away..
The Theory of the deliberative nursing process developed by Ida Jean Orlando, highlights the reciprocal patient-nurse relationship, in which everything one does and says affects the other. The main function of nursing is the resolution of the need for immediate help to the patient and the participation of the patient as an important part of this process..
For Orlando, a person becomes a patient when they have needs that they cannot independently satisfy, whether due to physical limitations, negative reactions to an environment or some impediment to communicate.
This generates in the patient a feeling of anguish and helplessness that can increase or decrease in a correlated way as the time in which their need is satisfied. This allows you to position the immediacy of patient care as a key element.
The nursing process would then be composed of three basic elements that interact: 1) the behavior of the patient, 2) the reaction of the nurse and 3) the nursing actions. This process can be automatic or deliberate.
His proposal is that it be deliberate, because through the perceptions, thoughts and feelings of the patient, his immediate needs can be identified and satisfied, reduce his feeling of anguish and, therefore, fulfill his professional role.
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