Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing - White Caps Yearbook (Atlanta, GA)

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the first fulltime faculty member, Miss Lillian Gumbee, was appointed. Today, the curricu- lum follows the standards set by the National League for Nursing and the requirements of the Georgia State Board of Nurse Examiners. The students are afforded broad clinical experience in all phases of nursing at Grady Memorial Hospital except psychiatric, which is obtained through affiliation with the Georgia State Mental Hospital. In her report to the Medical Board for the month of March 1898, Miss Patterson gave the student enrollment as 14. This figure, however, included seven students enrolled under the two-year certificate program. The last of these students completed training on October 27, 1899. Miss Patterson's staff consisted of four graduate nurses. Miss Leila Parker was the first graduate of the school. She completed the prescribed course on Ianuary 7, 1900. She returned to the hospital for the first graduation exercises on May 16, 1900, at which time she and her five classmates received diplomas and pins. Miss Parker received the highest honor. When Miss Annie Bess Feebeck, who was to serve in the dual role as Director of Nurs- ing Service and Nursing Education for thirty-two and one-half years, assumed her duties on April 16, 1910, her staff consisted of three nurses, thirty-two students, and two proba- tioners. Miss Feebeck's tenure of service was interrupted by military service during World War I. She entered the Army Nurse Corps in October, 1918, and returned to Grady Memorial Hospital on August 1, 1921. During her years of outstanding service, Miss Feebeck proba- bly trained more nurses than any other educator in Georgia. When she retired on Iuly 1, 1944, the school enrollment had grown to 279 and her faculty numbered fourteen. In 1929, the Education Department was established as a separate, but integrated, unit of the Nursing Service. It was at that time that the position of Director of Nursing Education was created. During World War I, thirty-one Grady Memorial Hospital trained nurses volunteered their services to their country and served with distinction wherever assigned. There were no fatalities among the group. During World War II, two hundred Grady Memorial Hospital graduates entered the Army Nurse Corps and served in all theaters of operation. Miss Louella White, Class of 1943, lost her life on Saipan. Lieutenants Frances Nash and Mildred Dalton were captured by the Iapanese and interned at Santo Tomas for three years. The Alumnae Association of the Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing was origi- nally organized in 1908 and reorganized in 1917. The objectives of the association are to stimulate improvements in professional work and good fellowship among the graduates of the School: to advance the interests of the hospital and to promote the professional and educational advancement of the School of Nursing. Every graduate of the School is eligi- ble for membership in the Association.

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HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL OF NURSING GRADY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL - Thelma D. Robinson When the Nightingale era of nursing was only in its twenty-fifth year in America, the Grady Memorial Hospital School of Nursing received its charter and is today the oldest chartered nurses' training school in Georgia. The petition for charter was filed by the Board of Trustees and the Medical Board of Grady Memorial Hospital and approved on March 24, 1898. Grady, the hospital which was to provide the field for nursing practice, had been in operation as a municipal hospital since 1892. The interest of the Boards in training the nurse in the arts of caring for the sick, assured the students entering the school, then as now, a sound and well-planned course. The chartered training school has had a three-year diploma program since its inception. Miss Adah H. Patterson, a graduate of Iohns Hopkins, who was serving as superintend- ent of nurses and in charge of a two-year certificate program, was appointed the first director of the school. She set the standards in keeping with the patterns of the best school in the country. The student nurses received a stipend, which ranged from 89.00 to 315.00 per month, from 1898 to 1933, when it was discontinued. At that time the hospital assumed the respon- sibility for providing uniforms which heretofore the students had had to furnish. From 1898 to 1922, probationers were admitted to the school at any time during the year. The period of probation varied from one to three months, but was subsequently estab- lished at six months for all candidates accepted. It was in 1922 that the first class, as a group, was admitted to the school. From that date, two or three classes have been admitted annually according to the needs of the hospital. The first students were housed on the second floor of the hospital. In later years they were moved to the building at the corner of Coca Cola Place and Pratt Street, which was connected to the main building by a covered passage-way. The building, now known as Hirsch Hall annex, had been constructed for an Isolation Ward, but was never used for that purpose. As the student enrollment increased, additional dormitory facilities were provided on the first floor of the hospital. The curriculum of the school was planned to cover a three year period. Formal classes were held twice a week by the director, lecture courses were given by members of the Medical Board, and the students acquired nursing skills on the various hospital services under the supervision of the head nurses. As early as 1900, a diet kitchen was added in which the students received instructions in dietetics. However, it was not until 1918, that

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HMBMi2 'H 'A'-1' HU- BETTY C. BLAKE Director of Nursing Service 8 In . W. PINKSTUN Executive Director X.-. I