Records in the School of Nursing

Abstract

AS we try to make our schools fJL better and better, we need a picture of what we are doing, so that we may compare ourselves with other people. One means of such comparison is uniform records. If all schools had records of students' work in practically the same form, it would be much easier for the directors to form their own judgment of the position of their school as they saw how their records' fitted in with those of other people. Records give us a bird's-eye view of the picture, which otherwise would be seen only bit by bit. A good record should be like a completed jigsaw puzzle and make a sensible whole out of scattered pieces. It should enable us to see the trees as a part of the woods, not obscured by them. But a busy superintendent of nurses, in a small hospital, who is also director of a school of nursing, often carries in addition many other responsibilities like that of superintendent of hospital, dietitian, anesthetist, etc. Such a person may easily say she has no time to keep elaborate records. She is quite right. She has no time. Also the hospital or school of nursing in which she is working often finds it impossible to give her adequate clerical assistance. Consequently the records kept in her school must be of the simplest. Yet records are needed, in justice to