Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1917-07-08
||eRhDUATE NURSES SEEK
STANDARD REQUIREMENTS
Wxnt All Made Eligible for Red
Cross Service Without Further
Examination.
QUESTION OF SMALL HOSPITALS
Young Women Trained in Institu-
h lions With Few Patients Have Not
Same Standing as Those Trained
I'm Big City Hospitals.

SEsThat graduate nurses of Virginia
may be eligible to service in the Red
Cross. and to expedite measures where
by this may be accomplished with the
least possible confusion. MAS the pur-
pose of meeting of the Graduate
Nurses Association of Virginia At tho
Young WomerS Christian Association
Thursday at which Miss Ruth Robert
son. of ST. Lukc's Hospital. president
of the. association. presided. The meet
ing was necessitatcd at this time to
meet the exiEencies of the recent
changes in the constitution and by
1aws of the national organization OF
graduate nurses. According 10 the old
ruling of the national organization.
which was not a wartime ruling. grad
Yuate nurses all over the country could
become members of the American Grad
uate Nurses Association in either of
four different ways-as individuals.
with the proper Endorsement. as mem
hers of alumnae associations. as menu
beers of local nurses associations and
through the State organization.
To simplify matters. and to "briate
!. The necessity of investigating the Gre
dentials of thousands OF nurses who
We're really not eligible to the Red
tSross service, the national organiza-
ton has made it impossible for grad
uate nurses to become members of the
American Graduate Nurses Association
except through their State associations.
Underlying all this is the desire to
standartaze the training Of all gradu-
< ate nurses since tho graduates from
at least fifteen Virginia hospitals are
not eligible to membership in the Red
Cross because they have not had the
sSper.ence demanded by the Red Cross.
which is that they shall have Eradu
ated from a general hospital with an
:iNeraGe of fifty patients Il day. Now,
the Virginia law requires hospital
TO have only twenty beds The New
York statutes require tina L." hos
pital have fifty beds and aver = thirty
PARENTS.
This state Of affairs which exists
throughout the South Is the result
more Of economic conditions than a
laxityj in The profession. Dozens of
small hospitals have sprung up all
over the South to fill the dire need Of
isolated districts far away from the
big city hospitals. While the nurses
in these small hospitals receive pretty
thorough training, so far rs it goes.
yet IL is not fair to the big hospitals
to put their nurses on the same foot
ing as those from these small hos
pitfalls. The American Nurses Associa
ton wants to make it possible to so
far standardize membership require
'ments in the State associations that
International organization can feel that
IL may draw on the State enrolment
al any tiine LOT n,d-criai LOT tHe heu
Cross service, should II be necessary.
The Virginia association has rela-
lively small membership. but an Of
fort will he made as soon as the con-
stitution and bylaws are changed to
meet the requirements of the -Ameri-
can orEaniza ton. to draw all the eligi-
bic graduate nurses throughout the
State into the State organization. The
new form OF the constitution and by
laws will be ready within few days,
when they will be voted Upon by the
members of the State association. Grad
Uate nurses throughout the South as
we'll as young women seriously con-
stdering taking UP nursing will be vital
~ interested in the proposed changes