The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-04-05
GREAT SHORTAGE
OF PUPIL NURSES
Roosevelt Hospital Superin-
tendent Urges Cutting Of
Training Course
SAYS TWO YEARS
is SUFFICIENT
Asks Academy Of Medicine to Recon-
mend to Surgeon General That Hos
pital Units Be Used as Schools
Army Needs $4,000.


NEW YORK, April 5.-Unless the Red
Cross and other agencies charged with the !
recruiting of nurses for the armies lower
their rigid requirements to meet the needs
of war there will be a great shortage OF
nurses for several years. DR.. Charles
b. Grimshaw, superintendent of the
Roosevelt hospital, pointed this out inl
letter to DIR. G. d. Stewart, acting
president of the Academy of Medicine,
urging that the training course for
nurses be reduced from three to twoI
years.
In speaking of recommendations for
increasing the number of nurses, Mr..
Grimshaw says that "all of them are
totally inadequate to furnish but
small percentage of the small number
required" One of the recommendations
was that the number of nurses in train
ing in the schools be increased to the
full housing capacity, but Mr.. Grimshaw
says that plan would add only 200
pupils, ''who, if they are satisfactory,
will in three years add, beside the nor
NAL output, about three per cert to the
$1,000 nurses now registered in this
country" He adds that Jane A. De
lano, director of the department of
nursing in the American Red Cross, and
all other agencies had estimated that the
army alone will need $4,000 nurses this
year.
Mr. Grimshaw says that in the larger
hospitals the rates to the private pa
tents for special or individual nurses
have been increased to - for each twelve
hours, or SO for day and night nursing
and that physicians are having great
difficulty in getting nurses for patients
OF moderate means" He adds that the
two-year course of training has proved
satisfactory in the Roosevelt hospital
He urges the acceptance of all graduates
of reputable schools even if they are not
registered, the cutting of the training
course from three to two years, and the
founding of schools for practical training
at all camps and base hospitals here and
abroad. He writes:
These methods would make avail
able nearly enough nurses to meet tn,
urgent requirements. The greatest pos
d sibllity, however, for meeting all demands
\ for the present and the near future lie
IN the pOtentldl elements contained II
the base and camp hospital units and il
the great number of trained and expert
enced physicians and nurses in charge o
n them. If these units were TO organic
Il practical training schools now. free iron
1 the red tape of any repressiye organiza
ton starting with four or five pupils I
4 each graduate nurse-the average main
\ tanned by most schoolsa concentrate
= course of training, not a medical cduca
, ton, in surgical technique and asepsi
and some symptomatology could yer
readily be given. For the present the
could pass over the volume of the theor
that gives the professional halo, which,
: needed. could be acquired later and Will
h in short time class of nurses, r,
cruited from the ranks OF nurses aid
Young Woman's Christian association
Us and other organizations if high class il
ty telligent women, would be giving our so
diers the best nursing that any hospitt
ay or any country affords, and few nurs,
nd would be left to meet the imperati,
ne needs at home"
Is He urges that the Academy of Me-
n lclne make recommendations to the su
Nv geon general of the army, and that Il
he program be carried out by "committ
id, OF physicians and nurses who are in syn
er, pathy with and will develop rather tbs
I'M obstruct it."