I graduated from Saginaw General Hospital’s diploma nursing program in 1969, a member of the last class.
Most programs lasted three years, but this one packed all the work in two. We went year around. The hospital staffed around the students, and some of us also worked as aides on the weekends for a little spending money.
Not that we had much time to spend money. We were either in clinicals, in class, studying, or sleeping–and not much of that.
We lived in a dorm connected to the hospital with a tunnel. Sometimes we amused ourselves with cart races.
Mary and I
Most of the girls had roommates, but Becky and I each had our own room in the end turrets–maybe because we lived further away and stayed on the weekends more often than the others.
I wanted my mommy, especially that first night when I heard crashing doors and lots of screaming, and then pounding on my door. I’d locked it, and I didn’t answer. I found out the next day that the “big sisters” were dragging all the newbies into cold initiation showers.
If we survived the first six months, we received our school cap in a special ceremony. Every school had its own uniform and own cap. You could identify a nurse’s school by the cap she wore. We sent our caps out to the cleaners who washed, stiffly starched, and pressed them flat. We’d need to fold and staple them back together.
Capped by my big sister, Betty
The ceremony took place in a church, and we’re each holding a Nightingale lamp.
My brother carved the school’s insignia (copied from a uniform arm patch) into a plaque as a gift. He cut himself and bled all over the house one weekend I was home and wouldn’t tell me what he was up to. He ended up with stitches.
Some things I remember
Seeing my instructor’s feet outside the curtain while I was giving a complete bed bath. She was eavesdropping.
Having to give up my chair at the charting desk if a doctor appeared.
My first patient death and having to prepare the body.
Passing nasogastric tubes down each other and injecting each other with sterile water after practicing on oranges.
Following a patient through an emergency C-section (baby’s arm had “prolapsed”) and discharge. The baby had a physical issue that caused doctors to question its sex. “We love him in spite of his penis problem,” mom told me before she left.
Assisting with a circumcision performed in the nursery.
Stocking my closet with jars of baby fruit for late-night study snacks.
Friday (8 a.m.) dates with a formaldehyde cat.
Early morning doctor rounds.
Getting yelled at for coaching a mom in labor.
Sunbathing on the dorm roof.
Metal bedpans and emesis basins.
Glass thermometers.
“Man on the floor!” warnings when Maintenance came up to fix a dorm issue.
Psych rotation–playing Euchre with the patients, scopolamine and insulin treatments.
Birthday parties and singing around the piano.
Dr. Manning halting surgery to admonish (and embarrass) Becky. “Young lady, we NEVER say ‘oops” in the operating room!”
Having to wear our hair off our shoulders.
Yelling “flush” if someone was in the shower so they didn’t get scalded.
The fragrance of alcohol, Dial soap, moist dressings, musty halls in the old wing, and fresh paint, as well as some not-so-pleasant aromas.
Having the difference between empathy and sympathy drilled into us.
Reflective listening exercises. “I don’t feel good.” You don’t feel good?
Avoiding the autopsy page. We were all supposed to observe one. I always managed to be busy. Or pretended to be.
Doing post-op teaching for a patient in her several days after a routine gallbladder removal.
We earned a black stripe for our caps later in our training. After graduation, we could work as a graduate nurse until we passed state boards, allowing us to add R.N. after our names. We learned to hold our bladders.
My first job was in an intensive care unit. I rotated through all three shifts. I struggled to sleep during the day, and I remember a nightmare evening as charge nurse even before I passed my boards.
Over the years, I worked as a special duty nurse, office nurse (OB/GYN and family practice), OR nurse, community health educator, and public health nurse. I went back to school in my 40s to get my BSN at Michigan State. I’ve got stories…
I haven’t worked in the field for several years. I miss it sometimes. I feel a sense of home when I step into a hospital, and I keep my license intact–just in case.
“Once a nurse, always a nurse,” goes the saying. I believe it. That need to nurture and comfort in some form continues to be part of who I am, though these days I’ve turned to caring with words.
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art,
it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation,
as any painter’s or sculptor’s work;
for what is the having to do with dead canvas or cold
marble, compared with having to do with the living
body–the temple of God’s spirit?
It is one of the Finest Arts;
I had almost said, the finest of the Fine Arts.
~Florence Nightingale
Composed by Mrs. Lystra E. Gretter, Detroit, 1893
In the stillness,
Sandy
Are you a nurse? Do you have memories of training?
Do you know a nurse who creatively practices the art of compassion and caring?
Have you thanked a nurse this week.
National Nurses Week
May 6-12, 2015
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This makes me nostalgic and look back on my own medical life as a pharmacist. So much to remember.
Share a memory, Lux?
Thank you for sharing your nursing story. I had thought about becoming a nurse then later a med assistant. But did something else which is working out. I am thankful for the caring nurses I have attend me when I was in the hospital a few times. They work hard and care for patients who, sometimes, are not so nice to them. Thank you and God bless all the nurses who give so much and ever grateful for their knowledge and skills. Have a great weekend!!!
Thanks so much, Becky. What’s really funny is some days I think (had I thought) I might have tried on a different profession–like journalism. But back then, I didn’t know I had much of a choice–teacher or nurse. Yet, I’m pretty sure God had a plan all along, and only nursing fit into it. Just like your “something else” that’s working out. 🙂
You are amazing, Sandy. The part about the BSN in your 40s – somehow, I missed that whenever I’ve read this story. The nurses during my two hospital stays this year have been astonishingly good — caring, efficient, skilled and kind. Makes all the difference when you have to be someplace you didn’t choose to be. Thanks for your hard work, your years of service and your kind and tender heart.
I got my BSN from MSU in 1995. I was 46 (that was 20 years ago… yikes!) I had both kids, went for two years while working full-time at the health department, and contracted mono–maybe tIhe oldest person ever. And I didn’t even kiss anybody–barely had time to kiss my own family. 😉
It’s all grace. And you are one of the God’s graces in my life.