Introduction
Often called "the Nightingale of Modern Nursing," Henderson was a noted nursing educator and author. Her "Need Theory" was based in practice and her education. She emphasized the importance of increasing a client's independence to promote their continued healing progress after hospitalization. Her definition of nursing was one of the first to mark the difference between nursing and medicine. "The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will, or knowledge. And to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible. She must in a sense, get inside the skin of each of her patients in order to know what he needs."