Alice Fisher

Alice Fisher (13 June 1839 – 2 June 1888) was a nursing pioneer. During her brief career at the Philadelphia General Hospital (PGH) she improved the standards of care at the institution and created the hospital's nursing school. Early life Fisher's father was both an astronomer, at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and a priest. Fisher was born in England. Before leaving home she wrote two novels, Too Bright to Last, 1873, and a three-volume His Queen, which was published in 1875. In 1874, after her father's death in 1873, she started training as a nurse at the Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses, now part of King's College London. Career After completing her training, she nursed briefly at two hospitals, the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the Fever Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne. She then became superintendent, also briefly, at three other British hospitals, where she made significant improvements in the standard of nursing: Addenbrooke's, at Cambridge; the Birmingham General Hospital, where she instituted a nursing school; and the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, where she instituted lectures for the nursing staff. With a fellow Nightingale nurse, Rachel Williams, she produced an early book on nursing, Hints to Hospital Nurses. Fisher made occasional visits to her mentor, Florence Nightingale. The two corresponded; letters Fisher wrote to Nightingale on conditions in her posts are at the British Library, but Nightingale's letters have not been found.