About Collection

Admiral Bristol Nursing School Collection, is a project initiated by Suna Kıraç Library to preserve the institute’s past. The history of the institution, which operates as the Koç University Faculty of Nursing today, dates back to the American Hospital American Hospital Nursing School, which was established in Istanbul on May 20, 1920. Founded under the leadership of Admiral Mark Lambert Bristol, the American Hospital Nursing School established within the structure of the American Hospital began offering a two-and-a-half-year education program. Providing an education following American standards, the school was established to meet the healthcare needs of Americans in the Near East as well as the need to fill the shortage of nurses in Türkiye, to provide health care to all regardless of their nationality or religion, and to train nurses in order to make a difference in patient care. It was registered by the Ministry of Education in 1957 and named Admiral Bristol Nursing School. It became the equivalent of Nurse Health High School and provided 4-year vocational high school education. Later, the institution’s name was changed to Admiral Bristol Nursing High School in 1976 and, then, to Admiral Bristol Nursing Vocational High School in 1981. The Admiral Bristol Vocational Nursing High School was taken over by the Vehbi Koç Foundation in 1995 and was transformed into a School of Health affiliated to Koç University with the Cabinet of Ministers’ decree dated August 12, 1998 under the leadership of Ms. Semahat Arsel, who has provided very significant contributions to the professional development of nurses in Türkiye. The education program of the School of Health, which accepted its first students during the 1998–1999 academic year, was designed in cooperation with the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing following international standards. The institution, which has gone through institutional changes since its establishment in 1920, has gone through stages and has been known with different names in time, is named as “Admiral Bristol Nursing School Collection” in this project. The collection materials have been compiled from Admiral Bristol School’s own archive. After the school was transformed into Koç University School of Nursing in 1999, the archival materials of the collection were transferred to the Koç University School of Nursing.