To celebrate International Nurses Day 2015 here is a list of fun facts as they pertain to Nursing and Midwifery. Each fact is of a Tweetable (is that a word?) length, and cites the website from where the fact was attained.

12th May = Florence Nightingale’s birthday = International Nurses Day. 
Source: http://www.icn.ch/publications/2015-nurses-a-force-for-change-care-effective-cost-effective/

Florence Nightingale was named after the city in which she was born (Florence, Italy).
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z92hsbk

Amongst Florence Nightingale’s achievements was the introduction of female nurses into military hospitals. Yes, female nurses. 
Source: http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/the-collection/biography.html

Florence Nightingale was a talented statistician who invented a variation of the pie graph.
Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/florence-nightingale-passionate-statistician

As at December 2014 there were 326,782 practicing Nurses + Midwives in Australia.
Source: http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/News/Newsletters/March-2015.aspx#quarterlystats numbers: 262,636 registered nurses + 60,755 enrolled nurses + 3,391 midwife-only registrations =  326,782

Of Australia’s 32,956 Midwives, 29,620 of them are also Nurses. That’s 89.9%.
Source: http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/News/Newsletters/March-2015.aspx#quarterlystats numbers: 3,391 midwives+ 30,199 people registered as both a midwife and either a registered nurse and/or an enrolled nurse

Only 0.9% of Australia’s Nurses and Midwives are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander (2013 figures). 
Source: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/who-are-they/

72% of Australia’s Nurses and Midwives earned their first qualification in Australia.
Source: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/who-are-they/

90% of Australia’s Nurses and Midwives are Clinicians, 3.5% are Educators.
Source: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/who-are-they/

56% of Australia’s Nurses are aged 50 and over. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 
Source: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/who-are-they/

29% of Australia’s Mental Health Nurses are aged 55 and over. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Source: http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/media/119868/Fact%20Sheet%2012%20-%20What%20this%20means%20for%20workforce%20and%20research%20capacity.pd

An Australian company, Ausmed Education, host an online guide to Twitter for Spanish-speaking Nurses.
Sources: http://www.ausmed.com.au/es/twitter-para-enfermeras/ + http://www.ausmed.com.au/twitter-for-nurses/

Nine Nurses were on included on the 2015 Australia Day Honours List. 
Source: http://meta4RN.com/honours15

The Catholic Patron Saint of Mental Health Nurses is Dymphna.
Source: https://meta4rn.com/dymphna

In Australia, 89.6% of Nurses are female, as are 69% of Mental Health Nurses and 98.2% of Midwives.
Sources: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/ + http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/media/119868/Fact%20Sheet%2012%20-%20What%20this%20means%20for%20workforce%20and%20research%20capacity.pdf + http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/who-are-they/ 

In Australia, 10.4% of Nurses are male, as are 31% of Mental Health Nurses and 1.8% of Midwives.
Sources: http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/ + http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/media/119868/Fact%20Sheet%2012%20-%20What%20this%20means%20for%20workforce%20and%20research%20capacity.pdf + http://www.aihw.gov.au/workforce/nursing-and-midwifery/who-are-they/ 

57.4% of Australia’s Nurses and Midwives have a main job that is hospital-based.
Source: http://meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/586921 Table 10

42.6% of Australia’s Nurses and Midwives main job that is not based in a hospital.
Source: http://meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/586921 Table 10

Australia’s registering body does not recognise any Nursing Specialities, but recognises 23 Medical Specialities.
Sources: http://meta4RN.com/cred + http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au + http://www.medicalboard.gov.au

Only one state in Australia (Queensland) has a program  that aims for all Nurses working Mental Health to be Mental Health Nurses. 
Source: http://www.acmhn.org/credentialing/qld-credentialing-project

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is Australia’s largest health union.
Source: http://anmf.org.au/news/entry/review-must-strengthen-not-dismantle-medicare 

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is the second largest trade union in Australia. 
Source: http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/contenders/australia-s-15-most-powerful-union-heavies

Australians have rated Nurses as the most ethical and honest profession each year for 21 years in a row (1994-2015). 
Source: http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/6188-roy-morgan-image-of-professions-2015-201504280343

A list of Australia’s blogging Nurses is maintained by NurseUncut.
Source: http://www.nurseuncut.com.au/blog-roll/

There are over 50 separate Nursing Organisations in Australia.
Sources: http://meta4RN.com/colleges + http://www.conno.org.au/members + http://www.nurseinfo.com.au/links.html

 

End

That will do for now. I plan to Tweet each of these fun facts out on International Nurse Day using the #IND2015 hashtag. Do you know of any fun facts that I’ve missed? If so, please add them in comments section below, and I’ll include them on the list.

Paul McNamara, 12th May 2015
Short URL: meta4RN.com/FunFacts