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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Nursing Textbook - 1926!

As a parting gift when I left my first career, my boss presented me with a nursing textbook from 1926.  Its original owner had signed the inside cover, and had studied in my city, in 1930.  The full title is, "Text-Book of Nursing Technique", by Irene V. Kelley, R.N.

The textbook even contained some inserted, loose pages, that were nursing school exams from the early 1930s!

All I can say, is wow, has the field of nursing ever come a looooong way since then.

Naturally, given my love of obstetrics/L&D, I went to that section of the textbook first.  There were many notable paragraphs in it, but I want to highlight two here:

1- During the second stage of labour, the nurse is to "anticipate the physician's wants, and act quickly."  I realize that is certainly the ideal situation and exemplified good teamwork, when each team member knows what the other is doing and what that person may require.  However, I found it amusing to have a nurses's role spelled out that way. 

2- the other sentence that I really loved, was in a section that described how a nurse is to care for a premature baby.  The textbook reads as follows, "The salient features of the care of thepremature are: Keeping the tiny morsel of humanity evenly and constantly warm." 

Yes, I want to work with "tiny morsels of humanity".  That's so sweetly written.  :-)

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