Opportunities in Private Duty Nursing as Seen by a Layman

Abstract

J COME to you very humbly, fully conscious of my lack of fitness to present adequately any lay point of view concerning your great profession. I do not speak as an authority, or an expert, but as one who is most grateful for the comfort and care graduate nurses have given her in the past and as one who is deeply interested in the future of nursing as a profession. I thank you for the privilege of being here and for your graciousness in giving a layman's ideas a place on the program of this convention. Usually, our first vital consciousness of the nursing profession. comes when some member of the family is ill and a graduate nurse is called in. In our ignorance and fear and distress, she comes to us as an angel of light-one who knows-who through her training and experience can work intelligently with the physician to relieve suffering and restore health. And because her profession deals primarily with the fundamental facts of human experience, birth and death and suffering, we look to the nurse for more than ordinary consecration in her chosen task, for greater patience and a higher conception of service than we feel ourselves to have, and the fine thing about it is, that our expectations are so often realized. The very fact that we laymen expect so much of your profession is, I think, a great tribute to the nurses who, by their devotion and skill and courage, have set the high standard which it is your privilege to maintain and to raise even higher for the future.