University of Michigan Medical and Nursing School - Aequanimitas Yearbook (Ann Arbor, MI)

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-i- SCQPEL livery hospital should of necessity be compelled to provide experience in at least the five major clinical services-surgery. medicine, obstetrics, contagion and mental and nervous diseases-to the student nurse if she is to function iproperlv after graduation. ' Every hospital should of necessity be compelled to provide a curriculum. and proper facilities for teaching the same, that will not onlv prepare the student nurse for her vocational duties but shall, likewise, develop in this student proper social habits. attitudes and ideals, in order that she may adequatelv meet the demands placed upon her by the community. ' The hospital's near-goal, the nursing care of the patients within its doors. must not blind hospital authorities to the far-goal--and iniinitelv the more im- portant goal of the two!the preparation of student nurses for the ideal citizen- ship as depicted in the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. No indi- vidual can be over-educated: he may be improperly educated, but never over- educated. He who states that nurses are over-educated savs so only because he is ignorant of the real meaning and purpose of education. 'The education of the nurse must be liberalized if the profession of nursing is to meet more adequately the needs of the community. The nurse herself is only in a small degree respon- sible for her social inadequacy: hospital authorities are far more to blame than the nurse for her inadequacy, and the sooner the public places the blame where it rightfully belongs the sooner the nurse will, without doubt, more successfully meet the social demands put upon her. V Picture the girl of eighteen entering a school of nursing and remaining there for three years: on duty every day of the year except her brief vacation period: securing a semblance of an education while doing a full day's work: cut off from all liberalizing or inspirational intluences, leading a narrow and mondaine existence: often placed daily in a distinctly commercial atmosphere, XYhat could one expect of her? She has learned. unfortunately. certain ineradicable social habits and attitudes of mind tand most certainly no idealsl, has acquired a warped social viewpoint and has become selfish and non-social. lglut what else could one expect? lYhat elsc could she be when placed in such an environment? The ideal curriculum would contain at least a few of the cultural. or liberal- izing. subjects. such as English, history. sociology. etc. These cultural courses need not be heavy courses. but they should have such content as will keep up the student's interest in certain lines of thought that otherwise would remain dead to her. However, the written curriculum does not concern us nearly as much as does the unwritten curriculum or the program of extra-curricular activities. The field of general education has long since appreciated the value of extra-curricular activities in the social development of the child. Nursing education has not yet realized the tremendous effect extra-curricular activities can play in character development. :X carefully thought through social program. as it is called. would be of immense value in producing a Finer and better type of nurse. for it would not only enrich her life by giving her a truer appreciation of beauty, by quicken- ing her imagination and by helping her to experience the full reach of intellectual and emotional possibilities. but would bring to her a keener realization of her whole relation to life and the people around her and hence make her more socially minded. The girl of eighteen is still intensely energetic and the social program should provide her with a proper outlet for animal spirits through hikes, basket-ball. tennis, swimming, and all manner of athletic pursuits. Such pursuits ca11 do much to teach her team work and give her a valuable experience in making social ad ustments.

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-I--SCKELPEL ii- tion Commision it would be found lamentably wanting. That such a condition of affairs should be so can easily be understood by an examination of the growth and development of nursing schools. The growth in the number of nursing schools in this country has been nothing short of phenomenal. There were some fifteen training schools in lSS5: today finds something like two thousand accredited nursing schools and a large number of unaccredited schools. This rapid growth tool: place primarily because the hospitals very early discovered the economic value of maintaining training school. Almost from the beginning, therefore, the nursing schools destiny has been guided by other than educators and, in nine times out of ten, the school was created only for the purpose of providing the hospital with the cheapest possible nursing service. Class rooms, instructors, libraries, equipment, etc., have only been secured by the never-ceasing and insistent demands of the women who courageously have struggled to win for their students those things which those in authority regarded as unnecessary but which any educator would probably laugh at because of its meagreness. Training rather than educating has been the narrow function of the hospital nursing school. Few hospital boards have any appreciation of the fact that their hospital has for years been failing the community in regard to one of its greatest needs. The average hospital board does not see that it is building women and citizens as well as nurses: that just in so far as they continue to manage the nursing school on the present narrow basis they are actually inflicting a great hardship on the community. lVhen the student graduates from the nursing school. the community expects to find in this graduate nurse not only a person who thoroughly under- stands the technique of her profession but one who is ethically and socially minded. In the past few years a storm of criticism has been leveled at the head of the nurse, not only by the physician but by the community at large. Everyone asks, Oh! where is the nurse of yester year? lYhat has happened to our nurse of yester year? etc. The medical profession as a whole has, to a great degree, claimed that the reason why the nurse has become less efficient, less satisfactory. amenable to command, etc., is because she has become over-educated. Thas such a statement can be made seriously is but an open admission of ignorance of all matters per- taining to education and educational problems. That the curriculum of the nursing schools needs an entire revamping or that methods of teaching nurses must be changed, cannot be denied. A very important fact that must be taken into consideration if the problem is to be approached in an intelligent manner lies in the age of the student nurse of today. The average age of the student entering the nursing school today is eighteen! that of the student in WOO. for example, twenty-live or more. The fact must be borne in mind also that society has changed greatly during these past twenty-seven years and, no doubt, if the entrance age now were Fixed at twenty-live we would not lind the same individual as stable a product at the age of twenty-tive today as she was at the same age twenty years ago. lt is distinctly essential that hospital boards, and all others interested in nursing education, should come to a keen realization that they are receiving girls, not women, into their schools today and that these girls must be surrounded by an entirely different environment and taught a different type of curriculum than the student nurse of twenty years ago or so.

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. '- SCf2I.PEI. The 1110113 imaginative girl should find her satisfactions in dramatics, group- singing. a school orchestra. visits to art galleries, concerts, and the like. Plays, poetry and good fiction should be easily accessible to students in a well-balanced library. The students should also be kept in touch with the trend of events in the outside world through a selection of proper periodicals and by frequent lectures on current events or interesting social problems. The average nurse is woefully ignorant of matters outside of her own little narrow world and efforts should be made to make her more familiar with and interested in the doings of the large world about her. Religious activities of all sorts should be necessarily encouraged. No greater calamity could befall the girl from the small town or rural districts, where religion and church attendance plays so great a part in the life of the community, than that she should fail to make immediate contacts with a church in the new environ- ment she is entering, an environment which will throw upon her greater social strains than she has ever known before. .-X morning service of worship is a highly desirable thing in a school of nursing. Such movements as the Guild of St. Barnabas. Young lYomen's Christian .'Xssociation, etc., should be maintained and encouraged. The social amenities of life should not be neglected if the student nurse is to learn how to meet successfully ce1'tain social situations that are sure to arise not only in her own social life but also in the pursuit of her professional activities. The nurse must of necessity have some degree of social training if she is not to prove offensive to her patients and associates. Carefully planned parties, teas, dances and receptions give her a practical experience in making her socially accep- table. Such training must be thought of merely as a means to an end, not an end in itself, of course, in the practice of her profession. It has been aptly said that T'aint what yer teach a feller but it's what yer larn 'em that counts Y and there is a world of truth in this statement. The student must live. not merely be taught, proper social habits and attitudes. Therefore, the unwritten curriculum, or social program, must be skillfully handled if it is to bring about any improvement in the social attitude of the student nurse. The presence of someone who is not only deeply interested in girls, but who is more or less an expert in social dynamics, as well, is one of the most important factors in developing the character of the student. Many pages could be used to discuss the qualihcations of the person who is to direct the extra-curricular program, but in the final analysis this individual must possess two outstanding characteristics, namely, a rich social mind built up through a variety of social experiences, and an abiding love and faith in youth. Another method of providing an opportunity for the student to lim' proper habits, etc.. lies in the proper functioning of student self-government movements. lt is essential that the students be given rm! responsibilities if the students' attempt at self-government is to succeed. Any movement toward the establishment of such valuable experience in building inner-control is doomed to failure if students are given only control of minor or inconsequential affairs. Student self-government is an actual training for future citizenship and the more practice the students receive in governing themselves the better citizens they will become. One might as well, however, attempt to go swimming without water as to start the student government movement without handing over to the students matters of major importance.