Keeping the light on - Nursing history center in Ceará - NUDIHMEn

Manteniendo la lámpara encendida - Núcleo de historia de la enfermería en Ceará – NUDIHMEn

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To share the implementation of the Center for Documentation, Information, History and Memory of Nursing in Ceará - NUDIHMEn and its achievements in caring for, producing and preserving the history and the memory of Nursing in Ceará.

Method:

It is an experience report regarding the work carried out in NUDIHMEN from 2009 to 2017.

Results:

The NUDIHMEn holds a database of 1,454 newspaper articles, mapped data of 35 manuscript volumes of the Ecclesiastical History of Ceará about Nursing precursors, in addition to 23 minutes books from the Fortaleza Santa Casa (1879 to 1970), documentation belonging to the São Vicente de Paulo Nursing School, 8 scanned minutes books from the UECE Nursing Course, among other research resources.

Conclusion:

The NUDIHMEn provides records on Nursing history in Ceará for knowledge, socialization and scientific production of the community concerned.

Descriptors:
Nurses; History of Nursing; Memory; Education, Nursing; Nursing Research

RESUMEN

Objetivo:

Socializar la creación del Núcleo de Documentación, Información, Historia y Memoria de la Enfermería en Ceará - NUDIHMEn y sus conquistas en la lucha por el cuidar, producir y preservar la historia y la memoria de la Enfermería cearense.

Método:

Se trata de un relato de experiencia sobre el trabajo realizado en el NUDIHMEN durante el período comprendido entre 2009 y 2017.

Resultados:

El NUDIHMEn posee un banco de datos con 1.454 artículos de periódicos, datos mapeados de 35 volúmenes manuscritos de la Historia Eclesiástica de Ceará sobre los precursores de la Enfermería, además de 23 libros del Acta de la Santa Casa en Fortaleza (1879 a 1970), documentos pertenecientes a la Escuela de Enfermería São Vicente de Paulo, 8 libros de actas digitalizados del Curso de Enfermería de la UECE, entre otros materiales provenientes de investigaciones realizadas.

Conclusión:

El NUDIHMEn coloca a disposición diversos registros sobre la Historia de la Enfermería en Ceará para el conocimiento, la socialización y la producción científica de la comunidad interesada.

Descriptores:
Enfermeras; Historia de la Enfermería; Memoria; Educación en Enfermería; Investigación en Enfermería

RESUMO

Objetivo:

Socializar a criação do Núcleo de Documentação, Informação, História e Memória da Enfermagem no Ceará - NUDIHMEn e suas conquistas na luta pelo cuidar, produzir e preservar a história e a memória da Enfermagem cearense.

Método:

Trata-se de um relato de experiência acerca do trabalho realizado no NUDIHMEN no período de 2009 a 2017.

Resultados:

O NUDIHMEn acumula um banco de dados com 1.454 artigos de jornais, dados mapeados de 35 volumes manuscritos da História Eclesiástica do Ceará sobre precursores da Enfermagem, além de 23 livros de Ata da Santa Casa em Fortaleza (1879 a 1970), documentação pertencente à Escola de Enfermagem São Vicente de Paulo, 8 livros de atas digitalizados do Curso de Enfermagem da UECE, entre outros materiais de pesquisas realizadas.

Conclusão:

O NUDIHMEn disponibiliza registros sobre a História da Enfermagem no Ceará para conhecimento, socialização e produção científica da comunidade interessada.

Descritores:
Enfermeiras; História da Enfermagem; Memória; Educação em Enfermagem; Pesquisa em Enfermagem

INTRODUCTION

The Center for Documentation, Information, History and Nursing Memory in Ceará -NUDIHMEn had the embryonic landmark anchored in a need felt when celebrating the 50 years of the Nursing Course in Ceará, in 1993. The act, held at the State University of Ceará - UECE, was a moment of finding a few materials to tell this fifty-year history. A small exhibition was prepared during this celebration. To do this, the event made use of old records of newspapers from the time of the conception, in 1943, of the Nursing Course in the State⁽¹⁾.

The aforementioned exhibition of the 50th anniversary was assembled with photos, clothes, brooches in the shape of lamps, materials gathered only for this commemorative end. After the celebration, the little that was gathered was dispersed and/or delivered to the nurses, who made the materials available for the event.

The dispersion of the information concerning an important story contributed, at the time, to the realization that the celebration may only momentarily deprivatize⁽²⁾ without being able to continue to socialize it, likewise in the fiftieth anniversary

Thus, it occurred that, in 1994, two of the authors of this manuscript, moved away to persue a PhD, which allowed the first approximations to studies in the field of history and nursing practice. The researches that were carried out then, resulted in two theses defended in the year 2000 and joint publication, as a book, in 2007, which theme focused on the nurse, her profession and practice. With a greater emphasis on the historical field of Nursing in Ceará, the investigative work initiated by these authors/PhDs was taken up in a more systematic way with the first publications in the disposition of articles, in 2008, in the Brazilian Journal of Nursing (REBEn)⁽¹⁾.

In order to tell the History of Nursing in Ceará, it was increasingly evident, over time, the need to organize an investigative group anchored to a line of research in the historiographic field,

... aiming to aggregate more researchers, involving undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in the matter and, most importantly, to develop studies with a theoretical-methodological basis that would continue the work in progress⁽³⁾.

It was necessary, for this, to constitute a group with the proper investigative competence, willing to research and socialize the history of Nursing in Ceará.

Therefore, in 2009, the Education, History and Collective Health Research Group - GPEHSC was formed, composed of nurses, professors and graduate and undergraduate students, belonging to the fields of Nursing, Pedagogy, History, Physical Education, among others from university institutions, particularly the UECE and the Federal University of Ceará - UFC, that began tracing their path with individualized and/or collective actions in the researches, in search of materials to compose a set with classification and registration for disclosure, consultation and new researches about the history of nursing in Ceará. However, the need arose not only to tell the story, but also to create and maintain a place for its storing and preservation. In response to this need, NUDIHMEn was built in 2010, resulting from the vast material collected, received as a donation, but also purchased by members of that group.

In that year, 2010, NUDIHMEn was added to two institutions from Ceará: UECE, through its Health Sciences Center, specifically being home for the Laboratory of Research in Education, History and Collective Health; and the Ceará Academy of Nursing - ACEn, to which the Center was incorporated, due to the nature of its work generator of a permanent collection, that requires continuous care of storing, preservation, socialization and exhibition.

The official installation of this Center took place after its approval to join the ACEn at a a meeting of the Academy Council, held on April 29, 2014, and then presented at a meeting of the Collegiate of Nursing Course from the UECE, on April 6, 2015. Subsequently, the Project of creation was sent to the Center of Health Sciences/CCS from the UECE for knowledge and approval in the university bodies that compose the Institution.

It is important to record the fact that there was approval and financial support for the research projects, that resulted in the conception of the Center and in productions in the history of nursing in Ceará, by development agencies such as CNPq - National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Universal Call- Process 476630/2011-8), FUNCAP - Cearense Foundation for Scientific and Technological Development Support from Ceará (Call Nº 06/2012 and 06/2014) and, more recently, again by CNPq, in the call for Productivity in Research (Process 307598/2015-2), important approvals for its strengthening and continuity.

These funded researches resulted, most importantly, in the creation of the collection that gave rise to the Center as a ward of history and memory of Nursing. Among these results, the acquisition and preservation of pioneering studies developed by the nurses and professors Eneida Schramm Frazão^(3-4) and Ivanilda Bruno Osório⁽⁵⁾, published, respectively, in 1973 and 2007. The first was a pioneer in this type of research in the State when she released, in 1973, a historical review when celebrating the 30th anniversary of the São Vicente de Paulo School of Nursing - EESVP⁽⁴⁾.

Thus, the foundation of NUDIHMEn aimed and aims to constitute a place of research and documentation related to the history of Nursing in the Brazilian context, in particular, the Ceará context in the recent past. It is valid to affirm that the Center is an innovative initiative, for enabling the foundations of a source of data production that did not yet exist in the State, regarding the history and memory of the profession, besides establishing, as it stands^(6-7) in the Ceará scenario, the constitution of a collection for public consultation, making other studies possible for teaching in the field of the history of the profession.

The Center also contributes to the undergraduate course, since it is expressed as a locus of training. In this sense, with the conception of NUDIHMEn, a place has emerged for reflection, the production, and also for appreciation of the history of this profession in the sense of “keeping the light on”. Therefore, the study is “justified by the pertinence of the preservation and availability of documents to the scientific community of Nursing and related areas, which in them find the indispensable sources for the historiographic work”⁽⁸⁾.

OBJECTIVE

To share the conception of the Center for Documentation, Information, History and Memory of Nursing in Ceará-NUDIHMEn and its achievements in the struggle to care for, produce and preserve the history and memory of Nursing in Ceará.

METHOD

This is an experience report on the work carried out in NUDIHMEn between 2009 and 2017. The Center collection was constituted by the aid of a group of researchers belonging to the GPEHSC, as already mentioned in another moment. The settings where the historical sources were found are the Public Library of the State Governor Menezes Pimentel, the Archdiocesan Seminary of Fortaleza - Seminary of Prainha, a Library of the Archiocese of Fortaleza Padre Luiz Uchôa, the Historical and Geographical Institute of Ceará, the Santa Casa de Misericórdia from Fortaleza, the Waldemar Alcântara Foundation, a Provincial House of the Sisters of Charity of São Vicente de Paulo, in Fortaleza, the Association São Vicente de Paulo, the Imaculada Conceição School founded by the Sisters of Charity (Providers of the first Nursing School of the State) and the Public Archive of the State of Ceará.

The Dr. José Gomes da Frota Institute and the General Military Hospital of Fortaleza were also research sites, since, in the past, they were administered by the Sisters of Charity. In addition to these institutions, the Federal University of Ceará - UFC and the State University of Ceará - UECE, with their remaining Nursing courses of the São Vicente de Paulo School of Nursing - EESVP. Sound documents were also collected through 32 thematic interviews with nurses who lived through the studied period (1943-1975).

The results displayed below describe the material mapped and inventoried by the group in the previously mentioned places, as well as its routing in productions and in implementation of the place of conception and maintenance of the Center.

RESULTS

Since the beginning (2009) but officially (2014), the NUDIHMEn has accumulated researches and records that testify and indicate the paths traced by the Nursing profession in the State of Ceará, enabling its recognition, insertion and reassessment. These data and documents provided information available to each nursing professional, as a social or institutional segment, providing subsidies in the making of their identity and redefinition of their individual or collective performance in the society where they live and work. These records, as mentioned above, consist of documents and materials that have already been classified, that need, as a scientific, social and historical function, to be organically as a modality of collection to be preserved, organized and shared.

For the making of the documentary collection found in the aforementioned places, the most significant collection sources that fed the database and the researches in the area were consulted, as outlined in following sequence:

- O Nordeste Newspaper - obtaining 1,223 articles on the EESVP and regarding the contexts of Health and Higher Education from 1940 to 1967 (when the journal was extinct);

- O Povo, Correio do Ceará and Unitário Newspapers - obtaining 231 articles about the EESVP regarding the contexts of Health and Higher Education, from 1940 to 1980 - a year that goes beyond the time of completion of the first part of research (1943-1975);

- 35 manuscripts from the Ecclesiastical History Room at the Prainha Seminary, appropriately identified and listed. They are letters in which information about the Sisters of Charity regarding the EESVP were mapped out. Out of the 35 volumes, 23 provided this documentation;

- Books and articles about the History of Prainha Seminary, constituting sources on the arrival of the Lazaristas Priests and the Sisters of Charity in Ceará, pioneers of Nursing in the State;

- 23 books of Minutes of the Administrative Table of the Charity Brotherhood of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia in Fortaleza, minutes researched since 1879 (the beginning of the work of the sisters in this house) until 1970 (suspension of their employment contract). This material was part photographed and part transcribed, due to damaged pieces;

- Book of minutes belonging to the EESVP, recording the years of 1943-1961 of the institution. This document was donated to the Center by the Nurse Maria Valquíria de Albuquerque Sacramento, guardian of the collection, previously existing in the Coordination of the Nursing Course of the UECE;

- Different institutional documents from the State and Federal Universities of Ceará about the EESVP and related to the education of the nurse in these institutions, from 1956 to 1979.

The collection of NUDIHMEn counted on donations of documents, such as diplomas, school records, undergraduate photographs of the EESVP, materials such as nursing utensils, syringes, bags, covers and also bibliographical pieces, such as old books, annals of events and magazines.

The NUDIHMEn also have sound documents of people who experienced the implantation of the EESVP, that is, protagonists that had a direct relation with the history of this profession (Nurse) in Ceará. Due to the persistence of the lucidity and, mainly, due to diseases inherent to the advanced age of the interviewees, it was necessary to carry out the interviews as a matter of urgency. These, as part of the collection, are filed in a digitized version CD-ROM, recommended by information science, being part of the database that now assists researchers in the productions about the history and memory of the profession in Ceará.

Regarding the scientific productions resulting from the research carried out up to that time, belonging to the Center collection, it is pointed out: reference book on Nursing in Ceará: History, Teaching and Legacy - 1864-1979, currently in the formatting phase for publication; 20 research papers presented and published in annals of events, such as full research papers or expanded abstracts; chapters of books, undergraduate monographs, master's dissertations and PhD theses, with emphasis on the first PhD thesis produced with sources from the NUDIHMEn collection - Education and Practice of the Nurse in Ceará: Implications and Consequences of the Implantation of Law number 775 of 1949, defended by the UECE, Fortaleza-CE, in 2017. In addition, the dissertations defended in the Post-Graduation Program in Education of the UECE: The History of Education and Professional of the Nurse in Brazil and in Ceará: The State of the Art (defended in 2016); Nursing Education in the State of Ceará based on the Analysis of Curricula from 1979 to 2013 - Trajectory and Tendencies (defended in 2015); and the Education of the Nurse in Ceará and the School of Nursing São Vicente de Paulo -1943 to 1977 (defended in 2013).

Among other results obtained and inventoried in this study, there is also the proposal to build an electronic site of the NUDIHMEn, with the purpose of facilitating the access, to interested parties, different information about the Center and its collection, stage in the conception phase.

Once these considerations are set, it is important to point out that the NUDIHMEn has and will have an ethical commitment to written sources, iconographic material and, in particular, to the oral sources that are available in its collection. They will be used in future studies, once the Center meets the Resolution 466, from December 12, 2012, that, in turn, incorporates, under the point of view of the individual and the collectives, bioethical references, such as autonomy, not maleficence, beneficence, justice, equity, among others, and aims to ensure the rights and duties that concern the research participants, the scientific community and the State.

DISCUSSION

These aforementioned productions, with a focus on nursing history, demonstrate that the NUDIHMEn has been investing in the production of knowledge, safeguarding the memory contained in sources linked to its collection and allowing visibility and accessibility to researchers with an interest in the history that nursing and its professionalization recognize. The survey of the historiography of this category directly implies on the recognition of its historical trajectory⁽⁹⁾.

We believe that the recognition of the importance and necessity of research in the field of Nursing History in Ceará, which nurtured and directed the creation and production of the NUDIHMEn, contributed to the professional education, while at the same time, pursues to eliminate studies gaps in this historiographic field. Due to this, it is defended that the constitution of a reference collection in the State appears as a point of departure and arrival for the advancement and recognition of the profession and its historical and political awareness.

Given the above, it is expected that the path that has been traced and developed by the Center, since 2009, can promote a symbiosis between memory and professional identity, referring to “awareness of the need to preserve the memory through the constitution and preservation of collections, because the memory is the guiding thread that connects the generations to each other, giving character of antiquity and continuity”⁽⁸⁾.

Limitations of the study

Among the limitations of this study, it stands out the time of existence of the Center, created in 2014, which in a way weakens its history. However, this article transposes the history of the group itself involved in the creation of the NUDIHMEn, the GPEHSC, by containing information that transcends those recorded in this paper.

Contributions to the area of nursing, health or public policy

The text contributes to the preservation of the Nursing memory, especially in Ceará, as it is a space for exhibition, research and continuing education. Therefore, sharing the conception of this space and informing the nursing students, the nurses and the scientific community concerned about the existence of the NUDIHMEn contributes to awakening the ethical awareness of its recent past which, in turn, is necessary for the preservation of memory and the identity of the profession. In addition, the ethics in the historical research of nursing may revert benefits to society, whether social or academic⁽¹⁰⁾, just as the nursing history contributes to the construction of professional identity, in which mentalities and ideologies (re) signify and express singular differences about the profession⁽¹¹⁾.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The message delivered from this text refers to how the NUDIHMEn encourages and develops (as well as accumulates) records and researches linked to the Nursing History in Ceará, making possible its awareness, its insertion and reassessment, which is essential for the profession to form its identity and define its performance. There is, in fact, another basis for research on the history of this illustrious professional in Ceará, especially their teaching and education, as well as a space for the production and socialization of knowledge produced in the field of Nursing History.

It is observed that, with the institution of the NUDIHMEn, there was an exponential growth of scientific production and material archived in database, as well as documentation and three-dimensional museum collection on the Nursing profession in Ceará.

Each constituent element of the NUDIHMEn refers to a time travel, which brings to the surface knowledge and uncertainties within the scope of local Nursing (inserted in Brazil and in the world), while reveals and writes its history. It is important to emphasize, finally, the idea that such elements, even if they are filled with objectivity, also reveal affectivity and subjectivity. When they are made available to the visitor and/or the researcher, they tend to contribute and aggregate knowledge, as well as to gather value to the education and recognition of the Nursing professional.

This report aimed to demarcate the history and socialize the foundation of the NUDIHMEn, granting a public view of its achievements in the struggle for the care, production and preservation of the history and the memory of the Nursing of Ceará.

• FUNDING
  CNPq- National Council of development Scientific and Technological (Universal Announcement – Process 476630/2011-8), FUNCAP- Cearense Foundation Support Scientific Development and Technological (Notice Nº 06/2012) and more recently, CNPq in the Notice Productivity in Research (Process 307598/2015-2).

REFERENCES

• ¹
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• ²
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• ¹¹
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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Oct 2018

History

• Received
  21 Feb 2018
• Accepted
  09 May 2018