[How the Feast of Corpus Christi at the psychiatric hospital of Sarthe became a historical event]

Can the historian, passionate about archives, build a historical narrative based mainly on the memories of nurses? Could the caregivers, who are themselves players in the history of psychiatry write it? When the former hears the individual accounts of the latter, history is written. The history of the Feast of Corpus Christi at the psychiatric hospital of Le Mans.

The training of new recruits into nursing: BJN 100 years ago

While many leaders of nursing 100 years ago strove to achieve a universal standard of education for nurses, it is interesting to note some of the methods of training employed in those days, and the importance of discipline in nursing care activities. The following are some extracts from an article by Miss I. C. Keogh, a matron

Ward Sisters of the past: BJN 100 years ago

The strengthening of the role of the ward sister is back on the agenda for nursing as the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing recently highlighted. Many nurses will remember with fondness and dread some of the old sisters they encountered during their training. I well remember some sisters who were especially strict with male nurses, often viewing them with suspicion and contempt. On some wards one was made to do more cleaning of patient areas than nurse the patients themselves. On others one might be greeted with extra warmth and friendliness, and given priority to see and participate in aspects of ward life reserved for those who sister favoured.

New and old professional groups in health care: formal re-definitions of the nursing profession and the internal qualities of professionals

The aim of this study to identify dominant personal and professional values of current nursing professionals. The study was conducted among professional nurses who were working in 5 (out of 10) regional hospitals in Lithuania. According to rules of multi-stage (clustered and, following it, random) sampling, 1000 questionnaires were distributed, and 872 of them were returned filled out (response rate, 87.2%).

RESULTS

The statistically significant differences were determined while comparing the ranking of values of comfortable life, a world beauty, pleasure, and true friendship. In ranking the value of comfortable life, statistically significant differences were revealed comparing the second and fourth cohorts. While analyzing the evaluation of the instrumental values and their changes, some statistically significant differences within cohorts were determined. It was revealed that good salary was most related to professional activity, followed by social security, a chance of self-realization, and others. Career opportunities and innovative initiatives were the least important factors related to nursing work. The approach to professional activity differs depending on the generation.

CONCLUSION

Our study demonstrates that a result of numerous formal re-definitions since the very beginning of 1990s, nursing has been developing as an independent profession in Lithuania very rapidly. However, notwithstanding expanded responsibilities of nurses and increased requirements for the professionals, there are no signs that the profession would be more empowered in the society and/or obtained higher status among medical professionals. In addition, in terms of internal qualities of the professionals, terminal, instrumental, and work-related values, which posses current Lithuanian nurses, are rather similar and very tenuously differ among generations.

To improve the training of nurses in France: the manuals published as teaching-aids, 1775-1895

From 1775 to the beginning of the 20th century, many doctors and clergymen published manuals in France to instruct religious women and nurses about their tasks and duties in caring for the sick. This article examines 10 such documents produced during three different periods, each reflecting the priorities of their time. Initially, from 1775-1815, the manuals were to serve in courses proposed to train nurses, courses that were refused by successive French governments. In the second period, 1816-69, they continued to be published as self-help manuals. By the third period, 1870-95, as nursing courses finally began to be set up, the new manuals reflected the new scientific and medical breakthroughs.

Nuns and nurses: debates on new nursing programs and improving the training of "secondary hospital personnel" in France, 1890-1910

A major controversy in French medicine at the turn of the 20th century was how to improve the training and education of hospital nurses. In 1899 the new government agency responsible for health and social services, the Conseil Supérieur de l'Assistance, encouraged setting up new nursing schools and imposing a curriculum to be followed by all. The Conseil discussion concerning these steps was very heated. Some councilors demanded the dismissal of all the religious nursing orders as a first step toward improving nursing services. Others favored efforts to educate all the nurses possible, be they religious or lay, leaving it to the municipalities to decide on the internal organization of their hospitals. To examine the issues faced by both choices, the article analyzes two cases of hospitals that went on to adopt each of the different orientations discussed: Le Havre, which set up a nursing school and kept its nuns, and Valence, which sent off its religious congregation and tried to set up a nursing school.

Starting out cold

Arriving from St Vincent to start her nurse training in 1958 was a culture shock for Shirla Philogene. But the shock was short lived.

How the war's end led to a new world for nursing

Nursing was pivotal to the success of the new NHS. Training and practice were invigorated and working conditions improved.

Nurse training, Bovril and spit: BJN 100 years ago

‘Nursing was a lot stricter when I was in training’ has been something that all nurses over the decades have boasted about to new recruits.

Memories of three wars: a nurse's story

This is the personal story of a civilian critical care nurse who has worked for several decades with war casualties. It begins with her memories of the Vietnam era and her reflections on that war. It then describes how the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, prepared for the Desert Storm War and continues through the current war in Iraq. The article provides a glimpse of a long and meaningful nursing career and expresses the joy and satisfaction of caring for the wounded warriors of today's conflict.

[The new hospital model established at the end of 19th Century and the professional nursing schools]

The historical research in hospitals organisation began in Europe only after the II World War. In particular, studies regarding the nursing in Italy are very scarce and heavily influenced by the fragmented political and organisational management due to the historical divisions within Italy. All the same, the social and working conditions, at least in the north of Italy, were similar in this respect. The workforce up to the beginning of the 20th Century was equally divided between males and females. The female recruitment took place exclusively from the foundlings left in front of the hospital and raised within the hospital walls. The work was very hard with long working hours, under a total subordination to the religious administrators with miserable wage. These conditions remained unchanged until the second half of the 19th Century when, in central Europe, a change in the reorganisation of hospital management occurred, together with a cultural improvement in the nursing profession. This process of reforms had started in England some decades earlier from the reorganisation of nursing made by Florence Nightingale. After Italian post-unification the healthcare field was involved in the tentative to homologate the vast differences in the hospital organisation within the Italian states which also generated tension, bitterness and many political debates. The particular conditions created in the main hospital of Turin in the second half of the 19th Century, together with the political and social climate at the time and the reopening of debates between Socialist, Liberals and Catholics favoured the reorganizational improvement of the San Giovanni Battista hospital. Under this prospective, the foundation of the nursing school came into being, preceded by the intense control of a behavioral and ethical cleaning of the nurses, in particular the males. The availability of the hospital administrations in carrying out the recommendations of the medical staff in the modernisation and sanitary improvements and also in the quality of service was manifested by the decision to keep only the personnel who had obtained qualifications at the ''Nursing School''. This was also due to the financial support of the school itself. A further indication of appreciation for the school activity was the premature decision to extend the course to two years. This formative activity rapidly showed positive results, improving service quality and raising the professional ethics of the nurses. A few years after the foundation of the Nursing School in Turin, the school was contacted by numerous Italian hospital administrations to obtain information on the practices and organisational activities of the school. Thus, the process of professional training of nursing in Italy gradually started to take hold. At the same time, despite the diffusion of the hospital nursing schools, the experience of the Nightingale style of schooling in Italy never firmly established with success. The continuity of the professional instruction is instead to be noted in the transformation of the hospital boarding schools, exclusively for females, which in turn evolved into the classic Italian professional nursing school.

Special deliverers. Interview by Carol Davis

Forty years on, a group of midwives who joined forces in Liverpool as nursing students are now contemplating retirement. Their working lives have been revolutionised in the interim.

Women in-between' (Strathern, 1995): the ambiguous position of the sister tutor, 1918-1960

The purpose of this article is to explore the ambiguous position of sister tutors, within the nursing and hospital hierarchy between 1918 and 1960. The function of the sister tutor was to train the probationers (student nurses). However, I will argue that the students' education was to come second to the service needs of the hospital, the authority of the matron and desire of the medical profession to maintain control over the nursing curriculum and nursing practice. Therefore sister tutors were caught 'in-between' several opposing forces which together militated against the individual sister tutor's work and the ability of the nursing profession to recruit adequate numbers of senior nurses into the classroom. The recruitment issue was further hampered by the widespread knowledge that much of the sister tutor's work was not student education at all, but organising lectures by medical staff and marking students' notes. In order to gauge the 'official' attitudes to the sister tutors and also the experiences of those who either worked as sister tutors or were taught by them, I used both archival and oral evidence in the research for this article. Pseudonyms have been used throughout for the oral history respondents.

The life and trial of Dagmar Nelson--part 2

During the more desperate years of the Great Depression a group of physicians brought an injunction proceeding against Dagmar Nelson and her employing hospital for illegally practicing medicine without a license. She administered general anesthesia and her employer knew it and supported her. It was a bizarre trial in that the arguments presented by both sides seem incongruous to our way of thinking today. The evidence presented at the trial echoed the predominant view at the time--the undisputed dominance of the male physician over the female nurse, who was portrayed, even by the defense, as only an extension of the surgeon who "has the power and therefore the responsibility" to control the surgery. Had she lost, anesthesia as a specialty of nursing would not exist. The method by which she won, however, has haunted us to this day. Part 1 of this 2-part column was published in the June 2006 AANA Journal.

Historical investigations: risk management in a New Zealand hospital 1888-1904

This article reports an historical research project in which four events within one hospital are examined from the point of view of what, today, would be termed 'risk management'. The examples involve a nurse sustaining injury in the course of her work, a fire in the hospital and two instances of patient complaints--one concerning nursing care and the other relating to a time lag between admission to hospital and receiving medical attention. All would have their counterparts in situations dealt with by today's Risk Management Departments. Analysis of the processes followed in investigating these occurrences reveals what seem to be two major differences when compared to present day practices. As well as being smaller in scale and less bureaucratic the earlier investigations were based on a culture of blame. It is argued that modern risk management approaches rather than being geared toward apportioning blame are more focused on understanding what can be learned from the incident with respect to preventing recurrence.