The Distribution of Nursing Service

Abstract

A YOUNG profession, where standA^ ards are changing and rising, usually begins to show three signs of professional growth. The first sign is the desire to discover the truth about itself. Of the three signs of progress, this is perhaps the first and easiest. It is easy because in advance of a study one cannot predict the outcome, and, therefore, it needs only a little courage to embark on the selfsurvey process. It is also easy because a profession, to discover the truth about itself, need not do all of the work alone. It is always possible to hire a statistician. The Program Committee has asked me to talk about the distribution of nursing service. We know that there is an uneven distribution in the nursing profession. Nurses are crowded into the cities far in excess of the needs of the population. Nurses are hard to find in the country and there are many parts of the United States where large areas are completely unreached by graduate nurses. Nurses are eager for private duty in hospitals and they are reluctant to fill calls for private duty service in the home. There are too many nurses waiting for calls on week days and often too few ready to work over the holidays. There are many nurses trained and interested in taking surgical cases and there are very few trained and eager to take special types of medical cases. There are thousands of unemployed nurses eagerly seeking for opportunities to become self-supporting; but there are hundreds of unfilled positions which remain unfilled either because nurses are afraid or unwilling