Chair 3: Edith de Magalhães Fraenkel, RN.
Patron: Edith de Magalhães Fraenkel, RN.
Researcher: Genival Fernandes de Freitas, RN, BA. Ph.D.
Edith de Magalhães Fraenkel was a singular figure, an example of a woman who was born to work and accomplish, without receiving almost nothing in return, except the recognition by her students, employees, friends and some colleagues.
She was born on May 9, 1889, in the neighborhood of Santa Thereza, in Rio de Janeiro. Granddaughter of Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, politician, military and Brazilian teacher, Edith Fraenkel belonged to a cultured and prominent family. Due to her father's diplomatic career, the family lived more than twelve years outside the country. She passed her childhood in Germany, Sweden and Uruguay. In those countries, she learned the local language, besides the official languages in the embassies, which were French and English.
She was an exemplary student at the Philadelphia School of Nursing, where she graduated mid-1925. She is considered the first Brazilian nursing graduate, facing the barriers of her family and society in general, due to the in-rooted belief at that time that Nursing was not an appropriate profession for a well-born girl.
Edith Fraenkel founded and served as the first dean of the School of Nursing at the University of São Paulo, leaving an immense legacy to Nursing in Brazil and internationally. She contributed to the founding of the Brazilian Nursing Association in 1926, serving as its president until 1938. She managed to turn the Association a member of the International Council of Nurses - ICN in 1929, the first in Latin America. She was the founder and instigator of the journal Anaes de Enfermagem, currently the Brazilian Journal of Nursing - REBEn, published until date. She participated in the leadership of the feminist movement in Brazil and fought for the right to vote for women and against the legal incapacity of married women; these rights were conquered in 1934.
Thanks to modern innovations in the course program, the USP School of Nursing turned into a watershed between the previous Nightingale system and the one developed at this school. In 1947, she organized the First Brazilian Congress of Nursing, in the premises of EEUSP, and this event continues to be held annually since then.
In 1953, she participated in the organization of the International Congress of Nursing, promoted by ICN, for the first time in the Southern Hemisphere and in a Latin American country.
Edith Fraenkel believed that the School should "be the radiating center for nursing education, undergraduate and graduate courses, not only in Brazil, but also in South America”. With the future prospect of the establishment of graduate education, she applied for scholarships in the United States for almost all of her teaching staff in different American universities, aiming not only for these lecturers’ qualification as specialists in the different areas of practice, but above all for the improvement of the undergraduate course curriculum, as well as for the training of masters and doctoral graduates in Nursing.
She retired mid-1955, returning to Rio de Janeiro, where she continued to work in a nursing school, in hospitals and in the Brazilian Nursing Association. She permanently took leave from professional activities in 1968 and died on April 5, 1969.
For all this, Edith de Magalhães Fraenkel and her meaning for Nursing justify my choice, in view of the magnitude of her accomplishments to the benefit of the whole class and her exercise of such strong professional leadership for so long, and her legacy that lasts until today.
Text by Genival Fernandes de Freitas, RN, BA, Ph.D.
4
Presenting the Scholar Dr. Genival Fernandes de Freitas at the Brazilian Academy of Nursing History means bringing to São Paulo, and particularly to its state capital, the legitimate recognition of our institution’s pioneering initiative.
I am referring to its origins, when it stirred up certain groups in Brazilian Nursing in 2010, but persevering as we are, it continues, has gained strength and is flourishing, the reason that we are here today.
In that sense, Dr. Genival Fernandes de Freitas was one of the leading actors to reach the point we have reached today. Thus, I affirm that his help to plant another landmark in the history of this Nursing profession was a noble gesture of blessed and lucid boldness.
Today's date rekindles with joy during the rite held by ABRADHENF, especially in this embryonic location – the symbolic uterus of its development until its creation - where discussions, rhetoric, eloquences and aspirations were debated, bringing the memory of our late Dr. Vitória Secaf, who greatly contributed with her words of zeal and attitudes for us to be gathered here.
The granting of the title of Scholar to Dr. Genival Fernandes de Freitas, at ABRADHENF, is the confirmation in the month of spring that we flourished, according to the criteria established in our regiment.
Eight years have passed since the creation of ABRADHENF. This figure entails infinite connotations and Dr. Genival Fernandes de Freitas will be our third scholar appointed to the chair he has chosen, named Edith Magalhães Frankel – the first dean of this house. Hence, his mission at ABRADHENF will be vested with the power and prestige in memory of its patronesse in Brazilian Nursing.
Receiving him in our ABRADHENF as a SCHOLAR is an honor and talking about his professional and academic trajectory would be redundant after the documentary analysis the commission undertook.
For the mere sake of illustration, Dr. Genival Fernandes de Freitas holds two academic degrees - Nursing and Law. This indicates that in his studies, I consider that the ethos and ethics of care are present in an outstanding way, which entails the core reflection of the balance between two areas of knowledge for the sake of zeal and diligence for the human being.
None of this is surprising though, as he has shown in his professional life, and nowadays in higher education teaching – at the undergraduate and graduate levels, in extension programs and through his active participation in symposiums and congresses in Brazil and abroad, which ratifies the upright person he is in the attitudes and behaviors that enrich us to receive him in ABRADHENF, as the third SCHOLAR besides Dr. Taka Oguisso and Dr. Osnir Claudiano da Silva Júnior.
In addition, the meaning of his given name GENIVAL, whether intentionally or not, already pointed to a person of leadership, signifying "born to rule", "commander of noble origin", which already pointed to the fruits that today, among that many others, are once again acknowledged during this public ABRADHENF rite.
During the difficult times that we are living, receiving him as a SCHOLAR means the possibility of investing his knowledge and ethical positions to advance in the field of nursing history and, if that is not possible, to comfort ourselves with his polite and dogmatic words in the best direction, if only to say: stop and we will await the best moment to move ahead.
This is important to highlight because, in addition to his double academic background, I should not forget his religious life. Follow this path or not was an option, but the accumulated learning is undeniable and affects what is told and left untold at the delicate times that life imposes on us. Therefore, he is a partner and friend, and humanistic in his interpersonal relationships.
Finally, on behalf of ABRADHENF's governing body, Dr. Genival Fernandes de Freitas, welcome to the position of SCHOLAR at the institution, honoring us in the scope of the award of our SCHOLARSHIP medal.
São Paulo, October 31, 2018.
Text By Fernando Porto, RN, BA, Ph.D.
