“THE CASE AGAINST HOSPITAL NURSES”
1902; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 2; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1097/00000446-190208000-00006
ISSN1538-7488
Autores ResumoNubses who are in danger of becoming inflated by too good an opinion of themselves are advised by all means to read an article called " The Case Against Hospital Nurses" in the Nineteenth Century for April by a Miss Johnstone.If after rising from a perusal of her indictment they can find any words except the meek appeal, " Please excuse me for living," then we fear that, indeed, Moses and the prophets would warn them in vain!However, let us not treat Miss Johnstone with levity.She says that nurses as a class are a trial in a house, dreaded by the family who has to have them.She calls them " offensive in their general behavior," " unsympathetic," " indiffer¬ ent" to suffering, and in the hour of death " callous" even to " brutality."She insists that these characteristics belong to the whole profession, and only allows that there may be a few exceptions.She explains some of these defects in nurses by assuming that in their hospital training they receive " harsh, if not brutal," treatment; that they work under such conditions that they are bound to deteriorate, and that no one cares if they do deteriorate; that, in fact, no one cares about their personal character if they do their work, etc., etc. Miss Johnstone admits incidentally that nurses do their work well, effect marvellous cures, and save many lives; this, however, is a grudging admission, and it is not a thing that they are to place to their credit,-not by any means to be weighed in the balance against their general unpleasantness!The entire article is a wholesale hash of indiscriminating assertion.No proofs whatever, no evi¬ dence, no illustrations does she condescend to present by which to fortify her position.It is singularly lacking in that careful exactness and discrimination in statement which nurses are taught as the first essential of the scientific accuracy needed in their work.In fact, the article has every mark of being "written to order," and Nursing Notes has this comment: " This is not the first time that the editor of the Nineteenth Century has admitted to its pages an attack upon nurses.We remember many years ago the part played by this journal in the time of a hospital crisis, when the publi¬ cation of an article by Miss Lonsdale concerning the nursing department at Guy's Hospital, then being slowly reorganized, put back the clock of nursing reform, not merely at Guy's, but throughout the nursing world, for at least ten years."The English nursing journals all have notices of the article, and take the same tone that we would take: that while we do not claim to be perfect, we resent a wholesale charge of being worse than we really are.Miss Isla Stewart and Mr. Sydney Holland had articles in the following issue of the Nineteenth Century showing the injustice and limited knowledge of Miss Johnstone.Mr. Holland defended the nurse chivalrously, as his wont is, and Miss Stewart with excellent temper and strong sense pointed out the glaring errors Miss Johnstone makes.She refers to the training in hospital, and says, what every woman in a hospital position has noticed, that the majority of pupils develop under their training into " upright, conscientious, self-respecting women, ready and fit to
Referência(s)