TALKS ON HEALTH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16701, 5 April 1922, Page 6

TALKS ON HEALTH.

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR, PROFESSIONAL NURSING. A correspondent asks mo if the nursing profession is overstocked, and whether it offers a good opening for her daughter. Let me say at once that no profession or walk in life is overstocked with reliable, efficient workers. There is a superfluity of mediocre, half-and-half creatures, who are neither very good nor very bad at their work. There is plenty of room at the top- Then never let it be forgotten that nursing is real hard work—as hard as turning out a room or washing. You are very much mistaken if you think that nursing consists in sitting by the bedside of an officer of the Guards bathing his dear forehead with eau-de-Cologne until he is well enough to offer to marry you L do not say that nurses do not often make good marriages, but the girl who enters the profession with that view only is nearly always a failure. Physical health and strength, then, are stern necessities. Tt is most important to have a thorough training, not a slip-shod education at a. .second-rate institution. VALUE OF GOOD TRAINING.

A nurse should be trained on the medical side, and she should hare experience of surgical operations. Tn addition to this, I always recommend her to work for certificates in other brandies of the nursing profession. She should take out a certificate in in valid cooking, which is most important. She should work for a certificate in massage. And it is always useful to qualify as a midwife. Do your best, while you are about it. to make yourself as thoroughly efficient as possible. Needles to say. a nurse must have n strong character. She will he put on • her honour again and again : she must loyally keep secrets; she must have strength to help weaker men and women; she must bo patient. goodnatured. tactful : she must remember that although it is profitable for her to be sent to a case where she will earn her money and keep, the illness is a terrible worry and anxiety for the household. It requires a. great deal of tact to come as a perfect stranger into a household and win the confidence of all concerned in a few hours. I have several names of nurses on my list to whom 1 can never adequately express my gratitude. They are worth their weight in gold ; they know I am strict, and they respect me for it ; they also know X sm just and appreciate their difficulties. It is true that a nurse can earn three or four guineas a week and all found, hut work is not always regular—there are slack times when nothing is coming in. I must emphasise the hard work. To nurse a man weighing thirteen stone, who is as helpless as a babe, while hr* is going through pneumonia. is no joke. It makes your back ache, I can assure you. WHERE CHARACTER COMES IN. T ou must not com© into the nursing profession unless you are strong and healthy and full of courage, and determined to uphold the honour of a great Sisterhood by every means in your power. I see the question from both sides. The strong man who has led an active life finds himself dumped on his back feeling as weak as a rat, and he is naturally crabby and out of sorts, and as grumpy as a bear with a sore head. But lie may appreciate what is don© for him and be as kind as he can to the nurse. But there are patients who are torments; they seem to devise new plans every day for annoying the nurse and giving her ten times more trouble than they need. T have been truly sorry for somo of my nurses, more sorry than, for the patient. There the strong character comes in. Some patients deserve a good shaking, and one is sorely tempted to smack them. But firmness and tact will often teach them better. Do not com© into our line of work in the same spirit as von go to a ball. Think carefully over it. You will hare to see and hear things from which you will always be protected if you lead the ordinary life outside the profession. You will stand at the bedside of the dying; you will have to try and comfort the widow, the mother who has lost her child in spite of all you could do ; you will spend nights with delirious men and women and others who are racked with pain. And yet. with all its trials, it is a splendid life. • a full life ; you feel you have done something for suffering humanity. And there is a very pleasant side to it all : the hospital with its society of the other nurses, the students, the doctors, the patients, the kaleidoscopic views of life make up a whole which cannot fail to interest you and banish the hump for ever. And if you work hard and do your duty well, no one null have the smallest objection to your looking as pretty as you can in your uniform. We like it. TREATING A SPRAIN. Tn the treatment of a sprain we deal with the injury in two stages—first stage, rest ; second stage, movement and massage. Unless this proper procedure is followed recovery will 1m? delayed. Walking on a sprained ankle before the inflammation has died down delays recovery. It is often done; t : he man with the sprained ankle is in such a hurry to get. back to work that he adopts a misguided plan that leaves him stuck in the mud T hare often been called in after the patient lias been struggling about for a few days and then has to give up. Tf ho had rested in the first place he would have been hack in the front rank of th© workers instead of lying on his back. Give Nature a chance ; three days absolute rest, and then start walking about. The other mistake may be made of prolonging the first stage of rest beyond th© proper limits. If you keep a sprained wrist in a sling too long, it will grow stiff and give no end of trouble. I have known shoulders remain stiff for weeks and months because the joints were not properly exercised from th© first; ease the stiff joint just a little every day when once you start, and do not alow th© stiffness to grow worse. Th© golden rule is to rest, completedv until nil swelling and inflammation have gone, and then begin movements, at first very slight, and finally working the joint through the whole range of movement. HOW TO HOLD A CHILD. The i»oor, long-suffering doctor often has the utmost difficulty in seeing a child’s throat properly. He knows that the little one’s life may depend on what ho sees, and he persists in trying to get a good look while the child is writhing and struggling. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing everything, and there- is certainly only one way of holding a child. It must he taken on th© nurse’s lap. and she holds the little one’s legs between her knee®; the child’s hands must be held by the nurse’s left hand, and th© nurse’s right hand must he used to be placed on the child’s forehead, so as to hold bis head against the nurse’s chest. This method does not hurt the little patient at all, and it enables the doctor to see all that he wants.