Extracts from "A Surgeon in Belgium"

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume X, Issue 3, 1 July 1917, Page 148

Extracts from "A Surgeon in Belgium"

H. S. Souttar

By

F.R.C.S.,

Assistant Surgeon, West London Hospital, Late Surgeon-in-Chief, Belgian Field Hospital.

The Belgians are by nature a cheerful race, but these were brave men, and we felt glad that we had come out to do what we could for them. But if we give them credit for their courage and cheerfulness, we must not forget how largely they owed it to the devoted attention — yes, and to the courage and cheerfulness — of the nurses. I wonder how many of us realise what Britain owes to her nurses. We take them as a matter of course, we regard nursing as a very suitable profession for a woman to take up — if she can find nothing better to do ; perhaps we may have been ill, and we were grateful for a nurse's kindness. But how many of us realise all the long years of drudgery that have given the skill we appreciated, the devotion to her work that has made the British nurse what she is ? And how many of us realise that we English speaking nations alone in the world have such nurses ? Except in small groups, they are unknown in France, Belgium, Germany, Russia, or any other country in the world. In no other land will women leave homes of ease and often of luxury to do work that no servant would touch, for wages that no servant would take — work for which there will be very little reward, but the unmeasured gratitude of the very few. They stand to-day as an unanswerable proof that as a nation we have risen higher in the level of civilisation than any of our neighbours. To their influence on medicine and surgery I shall refer again. Here I only wish to acknowledge our debt. As a mere patient I would rather have a good nurse than a good

physician, if I were so unfortunate as to have to make the choice. A surgeon is a dangerous fellow, and must be treated with respect. But as a rule the physician gives his blessing, the surgeon does his operation, but it is the nurse who does the work.

Some of the surgeons have their speciallytrained nurses, but nursing as a profession for the classes who are alone competent to undertake it as a conception which has yet to dawn upon the Continent, for only a woman of education and refinement can really be a nurse. The absence on the Continent of a nursing profession such as ours is not without its influence on medicine and surgery abroad. The individual patient meets with far less consideration than would be the case in this country, and is apt to be regarded as so much raw material. In Belgium this tendency is counteracted by the natural kindliness of the Belgian, but in other countries patients are often treated with a callousness which is amazing. There is in many of the great clinics a disregard of the patient's feelings, of his sufferings, and even of his life, which would be impossible in an English hospital. The contact of a surgeon with his hospital patients as individuals is largely through the nursing staff, and his point of view will be largely influenced by them. There is no one in our profession, from the youngest dresser to the oldest physician, who does not owe a great deal of his education to Sister.