A Case of Determination

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XVI, Issue 3, 1 July 1927, Page 130

A Case of Determination

D. C. first went through her nursing course and did much of her study for the medical profession while she was training as a nurse. By this means she went through her University course with very little monetary help indeed; her people were very badly off. In November, 1925, she almost passed her final Medical Examination, but failed in her paper on surgery by a few marks. She was married shortly after. The following November her baby was due to arrive on the 17th. Nothing daunted, she determined to go through the necessary examination to finish her course. She arranged to have a supervisor sent out to her from the University. The baby was born on November 17th. On the 23rd she went through her examination. She wrote

hard for two hours, then, being tired, she lay back on her pillow, and the Supervisor type-wrote at her dictation — and she passed the examination. When she took her diploma she wore her greatgrandfather's gown. Her fellow-students remarked on the handsome silk of which it was made and wanted to know how it was that her gown was so much handsomer than theirs. Was it because she had attained maternity as well? Of course, the silk of years ago was very different from what we see now-a-days. I saw her on Christmas night, where she and her babe were spending the evening at the family gathering, and she told me her brass plate was ordered and was to be put up in a day or two. (Contributed.)