THE PRELIMINARY EDUCATION OF NURSES

Abstract

IN looking over the field of nursing and noting the remarkable improvements made in some directions, our attention is drawn to one particular phase of our work in which certain departures have been made from ordinary methods which seem to us significant of tendencies of thought, and as such to be worthy of careful consideration. The changes referred to are the establishment in some schools for nurses of what is called training, meaning, briefly, a period set apart for the preparation of the pupil nurse by some preliminary instruction before permitting her to proceed with the further training provided by practical work in the hospital wards. From the fact that these changes have been established in schools widely remote from one another, and without communication or common impulse, it would seem that each school must be responding in its own way to a recognized need in its work. The first school, so far as we know, to demonstrate the existence of such a need by making provision to meet it was the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, which in January, 1893, established a course of preliminary training extending over a period of three months. This plan of preliminary instruction included courses of lectures and demonstrations in -anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, and hygiene, in the principles of therapeutics, in cookery, and in ward work. The course was divided into two parts; the first, consisting of lectures, etc., was delivered at St. Mungo's College; the second and more advanced part was given at the hospital. Entrance upon the second half of the course was conditional upon passing the examinations of the first. The fees for the full course were about five pounds, the pupil providing board and lodging for the three months at her own expense. In establishing this course of instruction the superintendent of 416