Licence: In copyright
Credit: The overtrained nurse / by W. Gilman Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![icine. To answer such questions with the slightest comprehension of their meaning requires months or years of study of the special subjects mentioned— otherwise they are farcical. What can a nurse write in “ ioo words of general urinalysis ” that is worth the paper it is written upon, and what has a nurse to do with the analysis of urine or gastric contents, especially when she does not know, as many of them do not know after three years of this sort of “ train- ing,” how to count or describe a pulse properly, ,or even how to make a patient comfortable in bed! In one of the schools nearer at hand, it is seriously pro- posed to teach the nurses how to count leucocytes! In other schools courses in reading aloud and “voice culture ” are given. The following series of nurses’ examination ques- tions illustrates the tendency to introduce the dan- gerous topic of the treatment of disease into their work. Questions from the Fourth Nurses’ Exami- nation, New York State Board of Regents, January, '1906:, “ State the probable cause of convulsions in the new born, and give treatment.” “ Describe cholera infantum and give treatment.” “ Give the treatment of croup.” “ Give the causes, symptoms, and treatment of rickets.” “What does haemorrhage before labor - usually indicate? Give treatment.” “ Describe the process by which bacteria multiply.” “Name three diseases in which bacteria are thrown off by the skin” [sic]. In an editorial in the New York Medical Journal, of March 10, 1906, the statement is made that “ the nurse who has been stuffed with medical and sur- gical information which she has not thoroughly di- gested is a creature far too commonly met with.” At a recent meeting of the Medical Society of the County of New York, in a paper upon The Relation of the House Staff to the Hospital Patients, I gave illustrations of the manner in which the overtrained nurse is usurping much of the work which ought to](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22431032_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
