The Student Nurse in the Out-Patient Department

Abstract

T HE dispensary as a humanitarian institution is not a modern idea; it is very, very old. However, it was not until Sir William Osler pointed out that in this humanitarian institution there was much valuable teaching material which was being lost to the student doctor, that the medical profession began to use this field for clinical teaching. It is now an almost universally accepted fact, in this country, that a medical student shall have clinical experience in the out-patient department as well as on the hospital wards. Only within the last few years have schools of nursing realized that this might be an educational field for them, too. The out-patient department is not merely a place to send a nurse for assisting and chaperoning, but it is a field wherein lie vast opportunities for her education. Even yet, we find doubtful superintendents asking what there is that she can get in the outpatient department' that she cannot get elsewhere.