The Battle Creek Sanitarium and Hospital Training School for Nurses This institution offers a three years' course of instruction. In addition to the usual subjects taught in hospital training schools, special attention is given to all branches of physiologic therapeutics, including hydrotherapy. Among other special advantages offered are laboratory instruction in bacteriology and chemistry, the use of the microscope, urinary analysis, practical course in cookery and dietetics, medical gymnastics, swimming, anthropometry, open-air methods and nature study. A special course of six months' instruction in hydrotherapy, massage and other physiologic methods is offered to graduate nurses. This course will be organized during the month of May. For particulars address Mrs. M. S. Foy, superintendent, Battle Creek, Mich. SYR. HYPOPHOS. CO., FELLOWS Contains the Essential Elements of the Animal Organization-Potash and Lime; The Oxidising Agents-Iron and Manganese; The Tonics-Quinine and Strychnine; (each fluid drachm contains the equivalent of 1-64th grain of pure Strychnine). And the Vitalizing Constituent-Phosphorus; the whole combined in the form of a Syrup with a Slightly Alkaline Reaction. It Differs in its Effects from all Analogous Preparations; and it possesses the important properties of being pleasant to the taste, easily borne by the stomach, and harmless under prolonged use. It has Gained a Wide Reputation, particularly in the treatment of Chronic Bronchitis, and other affections of the respiratory organs. It has also been employed with much success in various nervous and debilitating diseases. Its Curative Power is largely attributable to its stimulant, tonic, and nutritive properties, by means of which the energy of the system is recruited. Its Action is Prompt; it stimulates the appetite and the digestion, it promotes assimilation, and it enters directly into the circulation with the food products. The prescribed dose produces a feeling of buoyancy, and removes depression and melancholy; hence the preparation is of great value in the treatment of mental and nervous affections. From the fact, also, that it exerts a tonic influence, and induces a healthy flow of the secretions, its use is indicated in a wide range of diseases. NOTICE-CAUTION. The success of Fellows' Syrup of Hypophosphites has tempted certain persons to offer imitations of it for sale. Mr. Fellows, who has examined samples of several of these, finds that no two of them are identical, and that all of them differ from the original in composition, in freedom from acid reaction, in susceptibility to the effects of oxygen when exposed to light or heat, in the property of retaining the strychnine in solution, and in the medicinal effects. As these cheap and inefficient substitutes are frequently dispensed instead of the genuine preparation, physicians are earnestly requested, when prescribing the Syrup, to "Syr. Hypophos. Fellows." As a further precaution, it is advisable that the Syrup should be ordered in the original bottles; the distinguishing marks which the bottles (and the wrappers surrounding them) bear, can then be examined, and the genuineness—or otherwise of the contents thereby proved. This preparation can be procured at all chemists and druggists, everywhere. When you write Advertisers, please mention THE TRAINED NURSE TO CONTRIBUTORS.-We pay liberally for all Original Articles. Exclusive publication must be insured to all contributions offered to the Editors. Rejected manuscripts will be returned if stamps be sent for this purpose. Exclusive publication not required for contributions to Nursing World Department. Illustrations for articles are particularly solicited. All expense for drawings, plates, etc., will be borne by the publishers. No responsibility is accepted by the Editors or publishers for the opinions of contributors, nor are they responsible for any other than editorial statements. Books and monographs will be reviewed promptly. Short, practical notes upon personal experiences or brief reports of interesting cases with results from remedies, new or old, will be welcomed. The Editors and printers will greatly appreciate the courtesy of having all manuscript typewritten; or, if this is impossible, clearly written, great attention being given to proper names and medical terms. Copyright, 1906, by Lakeside Publishing Company. Get Your Money's Worth This number of THE TRAINED NURSE CONtains the advertisements of six firms who have never before advertised with us, while several regular advertisers are advertising new articles. As we have often pointed out to you, our advertisements are as valuable to you as any other part of the magazine. You do not get your full money's worth unless you read them. Look over them this month and see what new things are offered to you, enhancing your life-saving ability, not to mention your own ease and comfort The success of our prize offer for the best article under the title of "Nursing and Care of the Insane was so great that we have decided to offer a prize of $15 for the best article under the title of "Care and Feeding of Children in Private Practice," and another of $15.00 for the best article under the title, "Practical Nursing in Private Practice." These articles must not be over two thousand words in length, and must be in our hands on or before May 1. We claim the right of retaining manuscripts, but any which we publish will be paid for at our regular rates. + Accept Our Heartfelt Thanks We have been in receipt of an unusually large number of most flattering testimonials to the worth of THE TRAINED NURSE during the last two months. But better, these testimonials have been backed up in almost every instance by more substantial proofs of appreciation. We mean that subscribers have sent us new subscriptions with their own renewals and testimonials. This is what we want. Every subscriber added to our list helps us to help you more than heretofore. The larger the subscription list, the better the magazine for the money, therefore the more good it will do you personally and the profession. generally. If you like THE TRAINED NURSE AND HOSPITAL REVIEW, your friends would also appreciate it. Hospital Review VOL. XXXVI New York, April, 1906 NO. 4 The Ideal Curriculum for a Training School* D G. S. C. BADGER, M.D. URING the past six years it has been my good fortune to be closely identified with the training of nurses, both in a small general hospital and in a large general hospital. In addition to this experience I have frequently lectured to nurses both in general and special hospitals. For three years I was responsible for the medical instruction of the nurses in a hospital of twentyfive beds, and now for the fourth year I have given the medical training in the Massachusetts General Hospital during the first two years of the three years' course. In the smaller hospital the instruction was given almost wholly by lectures; in the M. G. H. it has been largely by means of clinics at the bedside in the open wards-two very different methods of giving instruction, I assure you. With this experience I feel qualified in a way to express an opinion about the ideal curriculum for a training school. The majority of the nurses in training are to undertake private nursing, the minority to take up institutional work. Of this minority, many will become teachers of nursing. So far as I could learn from a study of the catalogues of several representative schools, both large and small, the candidates for training must be between nineteen and thirty-five years of age, and must have had at least a high school education. The majority have had no further education than that given by the high schools. Bearing in mind then the two most common objective points in the nurse's training, and the previous education on which their hospital training is to be added, let us consider what course of instruction will best serve their purposes. This course of instruction I would divide into two parts: first, instruction in the art of nursing; second, instruction given by physicians. Of the two, I believe the instruction in the art of nursing is by far the more important. This should be given, must be given, by women who themselves are expert nurses of wide experience, and good teachers as well -a difficult combination to find. Such instruction should be given daily throughout the whole course of training, at the bedside, and should be supplemented by class room exercises. The superintendent of nurses should have assistants selected for good teaching qualities. They should go from ward to ward not only to teach the nurses, but to keep a close supervision of all the nursing. Each head should be a teacher, and her time and efforts should be largely devoted to the wards, to give that constant instruction so necessary to produce good results. Each head nurse should endeavor to make of her *Read at the Third Semi-annual Meeting of the New England Association for the Education of Nurses, Boston. Contributed to THE TRAINED Nurse. wards a private hospital, as it were. She should stamp it with her own individuality. Inspiration, encouragement, ambition to do the best work, enthusiasm, kindly attentions to the patients should pervade the atmosphere of the ward. The pupil nurses will quickly follow such a leader and the patient will be better cared for and the nurses better trained. The assistant superintendents should meet the head nurses at regular intervals to discuss matters of nursing, and to insure uniformity in teaching. It is too often the case that the younger nurse picks up her information from the older nurses in the ward, who in turn have picked it up from still older nurses. Cooking, massage, dietetics, reading aloud, and other more or less similar instructions should be thoroughly taught and by women instructors. Physicians may give valuable advice now and then, but the art of nursing is essentially a woman's gift, and therefore best taught by nurses. The second part of the instruction, or that given by physicians, holds in my opinion a decidedly secondary position. It may be made to hold a very important part of the training, however, if properly given. If it is possible to have but one line of instruction let it by all means be that in the art of nursing. What shall the physician teach? I should say physiology, anatomy, hygiene, bacteriology, bandaging, etherizing, and the observation of patients at the bedside. It is with the instruction as given by physicians that I find fault with most curricula. A long list of subjects is presented and almost as long a list of physicians' names. They all read well and sound learned, but I feel that such instruction is very largely a waste of time and energy, both for the nurses and physicians. What information the lecturer has, has been obtained only after years of study and observation. Can he in one or more lectures instruct his hearers? My experience answers this with a large "No." You have but to read the abstracts of your lecture handed in by the nurses to be convinced of this fact. If by chance the abstracts are good, the knowledge so obtained is not lasting; it passes from the nurse's mind in a few days, when new lecturers and new subjects are presented. In physiology and anatomy regular courses must be given, with demonstrations and quizzes and examinations. No other courses should be attempted at this time. In hygiene and bacteriology very little can be profitably taught the very fundamental principles of the most important subjects only. Chemistry, urinalysis and bacteriological technique need not be taught. At present I feel that these subjects can best be taught as preliminary courses before the nurse enters upon the hospital work. The M. G. H. nurses who have taken the course at Simmons College, before entering the hospital, have been excellently well instructed, and where possible I favor such training. I do not think it absolutely essential, but it is the best thing for the nurse. In any way given these courses should be preliminary to instruction in the wards. For instruction in medical and surgical subjects clinical methods are best. Didactic lectures should play a minor part. The observation of patients in different diseased conditions and the study of diseases as presented in patients are all-important to the nurse, as to the physician. It way be argued that the nurse while on duty is constantly observing the patients, and that the didactic lectures covering the more important diseases will enable her to make more accurate observations. Now it is my experience that nurses fail to make simple yet very important observations, largely because they do not know what to look for, and often because they are too busy to make any observations beyond the mere count of the pulse and respiration and the recording of the temperature. You all know the position of the nurse in counting the pulse. One hand at the wrist, her back |