Marisa Cantarelli, the first nursing theorist in Italy, has died

Marisa Cantarelli, the first theoretician of nursing in Italy, passed away today in Milan at the age of 94. This was announced by Fnopi, the National Federation of nursing professional orders, underlining that “a woman leaves us, a professional who has made our history”. Marisa Cantarelli, after her training in the 1950s in Rome, at the Scuola della Croce Red Italian, she returned to Milan and in 1969 opened the School of Professional Nursing in Magenta. In 1975 she was called by the University of Milan with the role of Deputy Director of the University School of Nursing. She held the position until 1999. but his teaching activity is also intense, first in the regional school, then in the university.

“The cornerstones on which to hinge the change for her were nursing competence, the responsibility of the nurse, the contents of nursing: in short, the specific professional in response to the needs of the people cared for. A revolution for those years in which a mastering it was the ‘job description’ and an asymmetrical relationship with the doctor – recalls Fnopi – Studying, researching, observing organizations and methods of assistance also in other countries (in those years he often went abroad on mandate from the then Ministry of Healthcare) led her to the development of the Nursing Performance Model. This work earned her the recognition of the first Italian nursing theorist. Always an authoritative and prominent figure in the academic field, she has written extensively on the Performance Model Nursing (told in a first edition in 1997 and re-edited twice in 2003 and 2017) but also on other aspects of nursing care”.

In 2013 she was awarded an Honorary Degree in Nursing and Midwifery Sciences and in 2022 the Mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, awarded her the Ambrogino d’Oro, defining her in the motivation of the award as “nurse, researcher, teacher, founder of a school of thought. Writes, in practice and theory, 70 years of history of nursing in Italy, attributing to it an autonomy based on scientific preparation and organizational skills and making possible the birth of the professional order community” and underlining that “at the helm for a quarter of a century of the University School of Nursing of the University of Milan, teaches how technical skills can humanize the care of those who suffer and support the daily work of the over 450 thousand Italian nurses”.