The Pediatric Student Council

Abstract

On Friday morning, Frances Kreuter, associate professor in the Division of Nursing Education at Teachers College in New York, spoke on the Quality of Nursing Care. Mrs. Kreuter began by reviewing the history and development of nursing in all its aspects-caring for patients, teaching, and administering a hospital nursing unit-and discussed how and when the tasks of nurses began to differ. She said that the things that affected the quality of nursing care today are: (1) the adequacy and quality of the training program for all personnel; (2) the effectiveness of the nurse to use her maximum ability in the allotted time; and (3) the type of nursing care required-custodial, restorative, or comprehensive-and the type of medical care provided. Her stimulating presentation provoked many comments and queries and she concluded by outlining the i e by State Boards of Nursing. iday morning, Frances Kreuthings she would look for in a school of nursing. The first speaker on the afternoon program was Genevieve Bixler, head of the nursing education project of the Southern Regional Education Board, Atlanta, Georgia, who discussed the progress that general education has made in regard to regional planning. Regional planning, she said, is a way of sharing-a way in which everyone benefits. As an excellent example of regional planning and the benefits that accrue to many peoples, Dr. Bixler described the accomplishments of the Tennessee Valley Authority. She said that these critical elements should be considered in regional planning: there must be strong motivations that can be satisfied; there must be educational and governmental ability to act and plan regionally; the mechanics for regional planning and action must be gauged by those who l plan to use it; there must be a large measure of experience in the approach to problems and to the evaluation of attempts to solve them, as well as courage to modify policies; large regional programs should be built from a series of small successful experiments; and large programs must grow out of the agreements of the educational, governmental, and lay leaders who are involved. Marjorie Barthoff, dean of the Texas University School of Nursing in Galveston, then outlined the development of the Southern Conference of State Leagues and told how this group had helped to strengthen nursing school programs in the South. She said that state board people have been doing regional planning for many years in their own states. Carrie Spurgeon of Louisiana suggested several problems that may well be studied by state board groups on a regional basis. l