Extract from Public Health and Insurance

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XIV, Issue 2, 1 April 1921, Page 95

Extract from Public Health and Insurance

Sir Arthur Newsholme

By

K.C.B., M.D., F.R.C.P.

I will not repeat the story of how women m a few months mastered mechanical intricacies m munition works, for which previously a long training was thought necessary; or how educated women, after a few months' intensive training, were able, under war conditions, to undertake the work of fully-trained nurses. We cannot ignore these facts ; and m regard to nursing, they should lead us to consider whether, under modern conditions of life, it is necessary that the great body of nurses, like the great majority of medical practitioners, need to be expert m major operations, and whether they should not be trained chiefly from the standpoint of the ordinary illnesses of the household. [These words, written by a man who has made a careful study of the problems of public health, and especially of preventive medicine, cause one to ponder over all that is involved. As a matter of fact, we do not think it has ever been borne out that m a few months any woman, however much more highly educated

than the average hospital nurse, proved that she could take thc place of the properly-quali-fied nurse. One heard of many instances of misplaced zeal m the early days, when such women bravely endeavoured to step into the breach aud take the place of a nurse, not always with good results. There is no doubt, however, that if it were possible to divide up, as it were, the body of nurses, into different specialities and then to confine them to those that it would not take so long to turn them out from the training-schools, as now they have to be given a general knowledge of all classes of nursing work. Certainly a nurse who is to w r ork solely with a physician does not need to know the needs of a surgeon, and equally a man who means to practise solely with medical cases does not need to master the intricacies or possess the dexterity of a surgeon. The difficulty would be to confine the training 'to one kind of work only, and a uniform minimum standard of general knowledge will, we think, still be necessary, and should be supplemented by post-graduate practice and experience m the chosen specialty.]