We need our own Florence Nightingale!

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 Sarah Tyson Rorer - Wikipedia

We need our own Florence Nightingale!

 

Florence Nightingale or “The Mother of Nursing” long story short a wealthy English woman who chose to pursue nursing as a religious and personal calling, walking around with a lamp, caring for wounded soldiers, lamp in hand during the Crimean War. 

If you ask any nursing student or nurse well ever “who created nursing” they will tell you good old Florence Nightingale.

Note: Florence Nightingale is also cited by some historians as the first pioneer of dietetics due to her revolutionary use of proper food and sanitation to nurse soldiers back to health during the Crimean War in the 1850s, though Rorer established the formal profession and title in the U.S. (But honestly, she has nursing so she can lay off the RDN train because we have someone wayyyy better).

But when you ask who the mother of Dietetics is? Crickets! Because she has been forgotten to the historical dark pages, tucked away in a book no one reads. Well. That changes today. 

Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849-1937) Is widely recognized as the first American Dietitian. 

Let’s just give you some fast stats on my girl Sarah: 

-Founded the Philadelphia cooking school: Opened in 1881, where she taught proper nutrition and therapeutic cooking. 

-Clinical Diet Kitchen: Started an early diet kitchen to prepare physician ordered meals for hospital patients. 

- Educating medical professionals: Provided foundational training in dietetics and nutrition to doctors and nurses. 

- First formal use of the title: The term "dietitian" was officially recorded and defined in the United States in 1899 to describe hospital food and nutrition workers, paving the way for pioneers like Lenna Cooper and Lulu Graves who founded the American Dietetic Association in 1917. 

Sarah was a visionary. Changing the way nutrition is viewed in health care.  And frankly its our fault she isn’t as well know as good old Florance. Frankly must like to profession itself, she needs better marketing. But we as a group of up and coming professionals can change that. 

So lets teach about her in school! Lets tell her story! 

 

Our girl Sarah paved the way its up to us to take this football to the end zone!

 

AMC 

 

Weigley ES. Sarah Tyson Rorer: first American dietitian? J Am Diet Assoc. 1980 Jul;77(1):11-5. PMID: 6993537.

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