The theoretical and practical training provided to nurses with the purpose to prepare them for their duties as nursing care professionals is what is included in the nursing education. Experienced nurses and other medical professionals are the ones who impart this education and experience to nursing students. Most countries offer nurse education courses that can be relevant to general nursing or to specialized areas including mental health nursing, pediatric nursing and post-operation nursing. For autonomous registration as a nurse, courses last for four years. Post-qualification courses in specialist subjects within nursing are also provided in nursing education.

Background
When people think of the history of nursing education many immediately think of Florence Nightingale. However, nursing goes back even further than that. during the 18th century a slave named James Derham was able to buy his own freedom from the money he earned as a nurse. Formerly, nursing was seen as an apprenticeship, often undertaken in religious orders such as convents by young women, although there has always been a proportion of male nurses, especially in mental health services. In 1860 Nightingale set up the first nurse training school at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Nightingale's curriculum was largely base around nursing practice, with instruction focused upon the need for hygiene and task competence. Her methods are reflected in her "Notes on Nursing", (1898).

Some other nurses at that time, notably Ethel Bedford-Fenwick, were in favor of formalized nursing registration and curriculum that were formally based in higher education and not within the confines of hospitals and Claray Barton who established the Red Cross. Today there are many ways to study and learn more about nursing. But, it took a long time for these nursing programs to develop. And, they are descendents of the first nursing program that was established in the 1850s in London. Japan’s first nursing institute was established in 1885 and the first nursing institute for blacks in the United States followed the next year.

Lillian Wald initiated the idea of visiting nursing when she began teaching a home nursing class in the late 1800s. Following the American Nurses Association and nurses and New Zealand initiative, other countries around the world began to regulate nurses on a national basis. Yale University in 1923 was the first nursing education that was established in the United States on the basis of education rather than the needs of hospitals. This really set the stage for the future of education and since then universities across the nation have developed nursing programs of their own, such as the Columbia University in 1950s.

Today nursing education has traveled the road to development to such an extent that it is available at college campuses, via online courses, and even through nursing continuing education. Men and women who want to become nurses can do so around their schedule and take advantage of all the study options for this amazing profession. This also includes proper specialization and allows for nursing continuing education.