Elvira López Mourín, the First Nurse in the World to Participate in an Aid Mission with the Air Force: Returning an Identity to the History of Nursing

Abstract

Elvira López Mourín was a professional and military nurse who was part of the first promotion of professional nurses of the Spanish Red Cross. She moved to the Melilla Hospital to meet the health demands of the Rif War. Her participation in the act of the first Spanish sanitary flight made her news in the media of the time and has allowed her figure to be recovered. Her professional career was lost after 1933 when she joined the Army’s Junior Auxiliary Corps as a nurse at the Madrid Emergency Military Hospital. The act that commemorates Elvira López Mourín is her successful participation in the first medical flight mission in Spain. During her professional career, she worked as a nurse in Melilla and as part of the Subordinate Auxiliary Corps of the Army at the Madrid Emergency Military Hospital.