The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-07
NURSING In HOSPITALS
Hard to Secure Intelligent and
Careful Employees.
Low Pay and Poor Accommodations
thc Chief Rcnsons-'Thc Men aeinG
Crowded Out by the Female Com
pctitOrs-Thc Difficulties OF HUI
namely Caring for Insane Patients.

NEW YORK. Jan. 6.-The difficulty OF
obtaining Intelligent and careful nursing
! in hospitals for the low wages paid for
that work has long agitated the visiting
and house physicians of many hospitals
| This difficulty was today discussed with
especial reference to the recent brutality
in the insane pavilion of Bellevue, by q
physician who is familiar through prac-
| tical service in one Of the large hospitals
of the city
There is no reason why the profession
of trained nurse should be limited 10 wo-
men, yet it is a fact that all efforts to inn
prove the sick-nurse and develop thorough
| ly capable and well-trained nurses have
been for the benefit of women rather than
men Many books have been written as
text books for trained nurses, yet scarcely
any Of them ever refer to male trained
nurses. The entire system, as it exists in
the different hospitals, is for the benefit OF
women rather than men. Twenty years ago
there was little difference between the
men and women who were employed as
nurses for the sick.
THE change came some years ago" ex-
planned the physician referred to, when
young women began to take up nursing in
a benevolent way as a chance to exercise
charity to the poor. Thousands Of women
have become trained nurses who would not
have taken up the work for the money
there is in it. But the market value of q
trained nurse has risen, and nursing the
sick remains a business In spite OF ideals
of philanthropy. 4 prObatiOner or nurse
Just starting on her work in hospital is
apt to be tender-hearted, and to 90 out Of
her way to soothe the fevered brow. She
pets the children and makes herself agree
able to the patients. But sooner or later
she comes to realize that she is in pro-
fession quite as technical as any other
business. and she finds that it Is better
to excel in the practical rather than the
sentimental parts of her duties.
Male nurses are of different sort of
timber. They have fewer sentimental or
philanthropic ideas, but are doing the
same kind of work. Few hospitals have
a training school for their education, yet
all hospitals are Obliged to employ them.
As a rule, the men have drifted into the
work by chance. Certainly no sentimen-
tai considerations have actuated them, as
a rule. A large number have come into
relations with hospitals at some time by
being patients themselves. While con-
a job, they have been employed in some
capacity around the hospital, and have
gradually become nurses.
There are two distinct classes of male
nurses. Some hospitals employ men ex-
clusively as nurses in male wards, rank
ing their services as highly as the female
trained nurse. But in almost every hos
pital the women have crowded fine men
out of these positions, and men are con-
sequently only employed as .orderi;es' or
ward servants to assist in a subordinate
capacity the regular staff of female
nurses. A woman in a training school
for nurses averages two years in the hos
pital, and then goes out to private work.
Male nurses are apt TO stay indefinitely.
They like the work and are content with
lower pay than they would get outside.
In some hospitals there is a constant
change in the force of male nurses, but
this is due to the various methods pecu-
liar to particular institutions.
Many nurses. especially in Europe,
have received their first training in mill
tary hospitals. A hospital steward in
the army ranks as sergeant. and, togeth-
err with the entire hospital corps. occu-
pies a position satisfactory to himself
and invaluable in the hospital Where
well-trained male nurses are needed, men
trained in these military hospitals are
invaluable. Their training places them
in the same class with the best women
nurses.
The most important part of a nurses
work lies in quieting or restraining an ex-
cited patient. A good nurse can save the
doctor the frequent use of quieting drugs
or even a 'straight-jacket' by moral con-
troll a rough nurse can make the most
powerful anodynes useless.
In ha ic lyrav
for one or more male nurses;
in some hospitals the entire care of the
is under the charge of a
trained male nurse. who sterilizes every
thing used In an operation and prepares
all the dressings. In most hospitals. how
ever, at the present day the female nurses
have supplanted the male nurses in this
department.
1T is a great mistake to consider that
there is any radical difference between
nursing insane patients and nursing the
ordinary line of hospital cases. Nurses al
ways are partial to a case with fever, or
some acute surgical disease. They dislike
the class of cases that are well enough to
be out Of bed and around the ward. The
worse the case the more interest it pos
sesses. even if # is wildly delirious. Be
tween delriOus patient and an insane
patient the only difference may be that
while the latter is usually up and about. |
The less acute the mental disorder the |
less interesting the case becomes to the |
nurse. Only a nurse especially interested !
in mental diseases is apt to pay much at |!
-ention to the different mental conditions. |
For all other nurses a rigid training is |
necessary to teach the peculiar methods |
essential for the care of the insane
In nursing the insane, common sense |
S often more valuable than special skill. I
Where the chief treatment of an insane /
patient is the feeding. the most success !
'ul nurse is the one who possesses the /
most ingenuity in coaXing him to eat in /,
;pite of his aversion 10 food. As the in /
sane patient is far more dirty in his hab- !
It's than other patients. the successful !,
curse OF mental cases will of necessity |
De infinitely more painstaking and con- |
;cientious in this part of the work to get /
results. In diseased mind /
he emotions are as often affected as the /
'easoning faculties. Hence to succeed in !
his class of cases, 1t is quite as essential I
o avoid hurting the feelings of hyper |
sensitive patient as to feed or clean him. |
\ little carelessness in this point is often /
he cause of the greatest difficulties in /
managing insane patients. and frequently /
s the provoking cause of violent out
reaks or injury TO both patient and nurse.
The majority of the more intelligent |
uuatics will at one time or another