Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-05-15
AS ONE WOMAN SEES IT
Scarcity Of Nurses In Special Cases
Brings About investigation Of the
Cause, and . Remedy 10 Now
Being Sought
BY SARAH d. LOXNRIE


sanatorium for nervous and psychopathic
patients.
In respectfully declining to apply she con
fessed that she had had no chance to study
nervous or mental disorders and wotld there 4.
fore be too ignorant Of the whole subject
to undertake the management Of an insttu- =
ton given over to the care Of patients suf-
iering from such mnladies. She added that
her general experience had made her feel
competent to manage n great variety OF
cases. and that she had no prejudice against
nervous or insane cases, but, lacking the
original training, she had never found time
to take up the subject.
A short time ago my attention was called
10 still another phase Of nursing with which
the generality OF trained nurses seem to be
that know fell Ill of n very viruient type
OF scarlet fever. and much depended on his
state of mind in the pulling of him through
Ihcrc were two nurses who had nurscd in
the family and whom the child was familiar
with and liked. To isolate him with either
peace Of mind. His mother was nursing
a young baby and could not be with him
herself. But neither Of the nurses could
undertake the case, because neither had
had any experience in that particular dis
ease, besides which one of them was not
OF her cases to take any contagious ones.
kNENIUALL1 nurse was found whose
- entire experience since graduation had
peen with contagious cases in n hospital for
CONTAGIOUS diseases. Her technique was the
technique of hospital, which differs from
that of the home both in small amenities
and in lack of resourcefulness.
!, The child recovered under her care, but
the whole experience to the family was
moro drastic and less sympathetic than
seemed at all necessary.
we found that there arc many doctors
who object to their nurses taking cases
like scarlet fever and diphtheria, and con.
sequently comparatively few nurses under.
take them without reluctance. And
looking further we discovered that many
training schools do not include any expert
ence In such diseases in their curricuia.
Perhaps this recent eye-opener made me
on the alert on the whole subject of nurs-
ing and the modern conditions Of the pro-
ieskion. One or two of the girls that studied
nursing as war activity have been very
frank with me over what they regard are
the handicaps of the training schools. Apart
from the poor dormitories that some of the
hospitals have for their nursing staff, apart
from the rather rough meals and drcary
recreation quarters that most Of them pos
scss, there Is often something not quite
right about the way most hospitals exploit
their pupil nurses. They work them too
hard, they give them instruction of the
theoretical kind when they are tagged from
hard duty, and they do not give them an
orders and contagious diseases being often
entirely.
MTH1LE the whole subject Of surgical
w cases is generally over accented, and the
whole matter of home visiting and of child
hygiene and convalescent diet such rs a
visiting or district nurse should have at her
fingers ends Is scamped, the complaint Of
the young nurses just graduating, mind you,
is that they have not been taught enough.
1t Is MS though they had gone to college
md had been worked so hard physically
that they could not study mentally.
There are other girls of less fine men
tally and with less exacting ambitions who
would be glad to get diploma in two years
and skip the third year entirely. SO thar
they could be out in the world earning money
and out Of the grind Of institutional work
Some doctors, feeling the scarcity AZ
handicaps to themselves, and needing only
sort Of halfway type of nurse. have
gone SO far as to advocate dropping the
third year and turning out half as many
more nurses again as pleasing result.
They would also make 1t easier for girls
to be admitted into the training schools by
lowering the requirements, even leaving out
high school entirely.
A GAINST this lowering Of the standards
n found the higher class of nurses were
setting their faces like flints. and scenting
a lively difference of opinion in the air
continued my casual but not lnpurposefui
observations. only to discover vet another
source Of dissension. 1t appears that the
large and well equipped hospitals resent the
privilege Of turning out graduate nurses
being given to small and poorly equipped
and sometimes specialized hospitals where
kL. bod bad, l-t-
of medical or surgical or mental or neuro-
logical diseases They claim that what their
pupil nurses get compared to those in the
smaller hospitals deserves a higher status
outside than the small hospital should logi-
cally provide They say. for what would a
school could give one that sounded just like
it. felt just like it and commanded the same
recognition in pay for services in the world.
And indeed we all Of us know that there
are nurses and nurses. There are some
who are intrusted with life and death medi.
cnes who cannot read aloud, or pronounce
the Queens English, or write an intelli-
gent hand. And you wonder how in the
world they ever got through their entrance
examinations, let alone their first year chem
istry and physiology.
WELL, after threshing this all out with
w nurses and doctors and patients and n
stray hospital board member or two, came
on some information that would have saved
me all my ignorance had ] gone direct to
the source of expert knowledge now avail
able on the whole subject The Rockefeller
Foundation has had n survey committee on
hospitals and nurses and training schools
which has been investigating for the last
two years some dozen or more of the great
hospitals of the country with view to max
ing standard for hospitals of the first class.
The report Of this committee has not yer
been made public. l think but sort OF
forecasting of its recommendations came
under my eye in a paper drawn up by
committee made up Of some Of its members
a committee composed Of head nurses and
teachers in training schools that is known
as "'rhe National League of Nursing Educa-
ton
Some of the recommendations of the
league have already been tried out and have
proved practical. What struck me MS OF
great value was a plan for centralizing the
schools of nursing in the first year courses
In theory, so that the hospitals could com.
bine and send their pupil nurses to one
school, where the equipment would provide
the best resources for chemistry nbysioJoyv