The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-06-11
Only 60 Per Cent. Of Nurses Needed
 To Care For Sick

but you have also the nurse in much | greater numbers who is the social ! nurse, the visiting nurse, the tuber- culosis nurse, the industrial nurse, the prenatal nurse and innumerable types of nursing activity which ten years ago were in their infancy. With this great demand for nurses even though there are many l more nurses in the country than ever before, there are perhaps not more ! than 6o%o of the nurses required to take care of the sick in the hospitals There are 700 needed in Connecticut alone.
 Todas's Nurse Is HaIf-Baked Doctor. The nurse that is graduated today Is a little too good to be a nurse. She knows a lot too much. She has re- \ ceiVed good deal of medical instruc- ton. She has had bedside clinics, ttherapeutics and so on. She is sup more or less She is a sort of half baked doctor and knows more than doctors did 30 years ago.
 We don't want half-baked doctors Ihe more nurses are educated in dias- noSiS and therapy thel esS good they are as nurses. What you want to do IS to teach the woman to be a nurse and then if she wants to go into a specialized field of nursing. she ought to be given the opportunity to do that With her eyes open.
 You have got to cut down the course for nurses. It doesn't take a woman three years to learn how to make patient comfortable A great many women don't need to learn it. She should have a shorter course with less manual labor during that course, With greater educational opportunity'
 Nurses Applaud Shorter Course At this point Dr. Winternitz was from the graduates, who evidently heartily approved his sentiments. When the applause had subsided, he continued: Then if she wants to ad dental Drophylactic nurse, or a bae- Astrological assistant. or a visiting nurse, or one of the thousand and one types let her go ahead not as an ndergraduate, but as a graduate"
 Relieve Nurses From Scrubbins
 In the opinion of Dean Winternitz student nurses have been imposed upon in the amount of manual labor required of them, and he expressed himself vigorously to that effect, add ing: Tt isn't essential for a woman to scrub floor innum erabIe times if she knows how. The hospital must relieve the nurse of manual labor of floor scrubhing and dish washing that reduces her to the level of a menia1 servant when she is supposed to exercise calm judgment in the care of her sick people,"
 He then made a plea for wider ed- ucational opportunities along general cultural lines. rather than training in medicine, assert 1g: She should be taught English n1-- sociology instead Of clinical dia 7 aoais and that sort of thing.''
 Solution of Nursing Shortage.
 Dr. Winternitz is firmly of the be- lief that this change of curriculum will diSpe1 the so-called nursing shortage. Ampiifying his theory on this line, he said: Make your nurs- ing schools moro approximate the womenns colleges, where the educa- tional policy will be a. part of the in- stitution, and you will attract nurses''
 In conclusion Dean Winternitz qnoted an address made by Sir Will jam Osler in 1891 as the type of a speech that should be made on the occasion of graduation of nurses.
 Presentation by Sumner Simpson.
 At the conclusion of Dr. Winter nitz's address the graduating class rose and stood in a. semi-circle fac ing Sumner Simpson, who presented them with the coveted diplomas MT. Simpsons deep interest in the Bridgeport hospital has always been one of it's most valued assets. He prefaced the distribution of the dip- 1omas with these brief sentences: T am now going to something a little better than I can make a speech. [ am going to present omething that you ladies have been looking forward to for three years and which you have well earned It gives me great pleas ure to present you with these diplo- maS.'
 Get Class Pins
 The graduates then passed before Miss Anna Gardner. Superintendent of Nurses who pinned on their class pins.
 Following the exercises at the church the now full fledged nurses the Nurses Home on Mill Hill ave- nue. Music was furnished by Mur- rays orchestra.