|
The Tasks of the First Decade |
| The improvement of the training of nurses ... was of vital importance to all nurses because it set standards for the profession and differentiated trained nurses from those who claimed to be nurses. The Associated Alumnae and the Society of Superintendents worked to upgrade student admission requirements (one year of high school), shorten the 12 hour day, and provide preliminary classes on the care of the sick before placing the student on ward duty. |
| "The state of nursing education is dismal. For example, as to classrooms and equipment, in certain schools there is one classroom and some equipment, in hundreds of schools there is not even a pretense of either ..." M. Adelaide Nutting, 1908 Address at the New York State Nurses Association |
| "Our present system of training is by no means an ideal one. The work is most exacting and the long hours leave little time for recreation. When off duty in the wards, time has to be found to prepare for and attend lectures ..." Julia C. Lathrope of Hull House, Welcome Address, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual ANA Convention, Chicago (May 1, 1902) |
| "Nowhere .. has the ... opportunity for nurses been so great as in the field which may be broadly termed that of social welfare. Under the ... title of district and visiting nursing, a system ... has been developed which makes of the nurse not only a skilled agency for the relief of suffering, but a teacher of sanitary and healthful living, and a power for the prevention of disease. This ... [is] one of the most promising movements of modern times for social betterment." M. Adelaide Nutting (1912), Educational Status of Nursing, p. 11 |
Military NursingThe demand for trained nurses to serve in the Spanish-American War (1898) presented an unexpected problem for the Nurses Associated Alumnae. To assure the nation that trained nurses, directed by nurses, would be a permanent part of the military medical departments, the ANA petitioned Congress to establish the Army and Navy Nursing Corps."Resolved, that this association strongly and unanimously endorses the principles contained in the bill recently before Congress, to establish a permanent Army Nursing Service, under the direction of a properly qualified trained nurse." Report of the Third Annual Convention, American Journal of Nursing (1900), p. 94 |
| To communicate to the country's nurses ... the Associated Alumnae members established the American Journal Nursing (AJN) in 1900. According to its editor, Sophia Palmer, the aim of the American Journal of Nursing was to "present, month by month, the most useful facts, the most progressive thought, and the latest news the profession has to offer ... It will deal with the great questions' of the nursing world." AJN (1900), Editorial, p. 64 |
1903: Nurse licensure laws passed in ...
|
| Nursing, to fulfill its social responsibility to the public, "... should demand recognition as a profession through granting of a proper certificate by a state constituted and maintained board of examiners." Annie Damier, President's Address, Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention, AJN (1902), p. 752 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
All rights reserved. No reproduction without permission of ANA. |