Özet:

Nursing is a profession existing as an answer to the human needs and dating back to the human existence. It is possible to track down the history of nursing to the earliest ages of human history. Although the history is not just a composition of pioneers’ stories, revealing the life stories of pioneers, especially focusing on impediments they had during their professional lives, their contributions to the development of their fields provides remarkable assistance to the future generations for making progress in their career. To understand and evaluate a profession's present state, it is necessary to track it back in time until its emergence and follow-up its development until the day. Safiye Hussein Elbi, a modern woman in contemporary Turkey, has an important role in the inclusion of woman in social life in Turkey. She was one of the first volunteers attending to the nursing courses given by Besim Ömer Paşa as well as being a volunteer nurse in the Balkan Wars. Moreover, she involved in work in nursing fields both nationally and internationally. Although she is a crucial pioneer in the history of medicine and nursing in Turkey because she dedicated her life to the nursing education, she has received public attention in the last few years; she was not recognized even by the nurses in Turkey and there has been only a few research about her in the literature. Although she is an important figure fort he history of Turkish medicine, every contribution to the nursing profession is not adequately shared with the general public. Every life story and a couple of intresting events from every memoirs are discussed, rather than every scientific and professional identity. The main objective of this study is to highlight the significance of Safi Hussein Elbi as a nursing pioneer in Turkey; to increase her recognizability by using very limited information and to clarify the profession's development in historical process.

Anahtar Kelimeler: