The Democratic advocate., 1890-11-22
The Training of a Nurse.
Mrs. Frederick Rhinelander Jones. in NoyemI

Mrs. Frederick Rhnclander Jones, in November
Scrihner
The Bellevue New York Training School
for Nurses was started on May l, 1873,
with superintendent and five nurses hay
ING five wards under their care.
In 1890 the school has g. pupils and
has graduated 3lj. while as a direct out
growth of that modest beginning there are
three other great schools in New York
alone. These are the New York City,
which has 81 pupils and has graduated
2G3; the New York Hospital, with As pu-
pills and l92 graduates; and Mount Sinai,
1''''h 80 pupils and III graduates There
are also smaller schools IN Inc UaJ hut.
great or small, Bellevue mas! always be
honored as the pioneer. Her graduates
are at the head of most Of the important
schools and hospitals in the country, and
have even gone 50 far alield rs England,
Italy, and China
The next school TO be established was
the New York City, which was started by
the Commissioners of Charities and Cor
rection in 1877, and is entirely supported
by the City. Until last year it was known
as the Charity Hospital School, because it
began there, but as it grew its work spread
until the old name was misleading and had
to be changed It is now the largest and
in some respects the most important Of all
the schools, rs il nurses five different hospi-
tals-Charity and Maternity on Blackwell's
Island, the Infants Hospital on Randall's
Island. Gouvcrneur at Gouverneur Slip,
and Harlem, at the foot of East 120th
Street, the two last being accident or emer-
gency hospitals, while at Charity the cases
are largely chronic. Besides the pupils of
the school, there are thirty two permanent
trained nurses at Charity and Randall's
Island, making nearly a hundred in all,
for whom the superintendent is directly
responsible, and over whom she has full
authority The other schools in the city
are supported from the funds of the hospi-
tails which they nurse.
We each begin our duty in the hospital
as probationcrs on months trial. That
begiuning is very new TO most of us; quite
unlike anything in our previous lives. Be
fore entering the school, some of us may
have imagined that we had peculiar fit
ness for nursing, even if we did not con-
slider ourselves born nurses. We may have
made up our minds that we knew how to
make poultice, and to care for the sick by
being kind to them and ventilating their
rooms We may possibly have read Miss
Nightingale's Notes" and so are quite
sure that we know something of nursing;
but that the hospital training will give us a
sort of standing, and therefore it will be a
desirable thing to have. As we proceed
with our training we discover that we did
not know how TO make poultice,i inor how
best to care for a sick person. Some of
us, again, know nothing at all about nugs-
ing, but we are not required to know any
thing. A head nurse prefers to train the
raw material, so to speak, in her own way.
What is required is that the probationer
be receptive, that she be intelligent and,
above all, active; and in case she has any
knowledge of nursing, OF ideas, or opinions,
if she is discriminating she will keep them
to herself
We have no dreaming time; there is no
place for sentiment, and very little for SYM
pathy in the ordinary sense of the word.
Were we to sympathize with all the woes
that we see We should be used up, we
should die.
A probationer enters the ward for the
first time, and is introduced to her head
nurse. She is then probably set to do some
simple piece of work, such as arranging
closet or folding clothes and the like. On
the next day she viii have her regular du-
ties to learn. As the afternoon goes on she
may find looking at the clock watch
ing for $50 p. M. to come so that she may
90 off duty, and she has, probably, a bad
headache. There is a hospital atmosphere.
produced by the smell Of drugs ami other
unavoidable odors, pereeptible TO fresh
nose, there are strange sights and sounds
which, combined, give sost Of shock ies
the first day. u