- Email: [email protected]
Centuries of History…Centuries of Caring
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Centuries of History...Centuries of Caring
Kathy Robinson, RN, Bloomsburg, Pa
Kathy Robinson is president of the Emergency Nurses Association and a member of the Susquehanna chapter; E-mail: [email protected]. J Emerg Nurs 2003;29:1-2. Copyright © 2003 by the Emergency Nurses Association. 0099-1767/2003 $30.00 + 0 doi:10.1067/men.2003.27
Deborah Sampson, who lived in the late 1700s, is the first woman known to have impersonated a man in order to join the Army. She fought valiantly, and when she was wounded in battle, she tended to her own injuries so that her gender would not be discovered. During the Spanish American War, nurse Clara Maass volunteered to be bitten by a mosquito in the quest to find a vaccine for yellow fever. Four hundred military nurses died from a highly contagious form of influenza during World War I. Countless nurses were among those who landed—and were killed—on Normandy shores during the D-Day invasion. When surviving nurses were bombed in field hospitals, they gathered wounded soldiers in the basements of abandoned buildings and crawled on their hands and knees to dispense medications. World War II created a shortage of nurses in civilian hospitals. The Cadet Nurse Corps was created in 1943 and used recruiting slogans such as, “The Girl With a Future, Be a Cadet Nurse.” Under the auspices of the US Public Health Service, nurses could “serve while they learned.” Tuition, books, a stipend, and a uniform were provided; this “benefit” was highly valued by women who otherwise would not have received a college education because of the Great Depression. (Note: most nursing schools in the 1940s did not accept married women, and in the early years of the Cadet Nurse Corps, African American women were prohibited from enlisting.) During World War II, 67 Army nurses, along with about a dozen Navy nurses, were captured by the Japanese and held as prisoners of war on the small Philippine island of Corregidor for more than 3 years in primitive conditions at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Hepatitis, malaria, and typhoid fever gripped these courageous women, who endured their own debilitating illnesses while continuing to take care of sick and injured
February 2003 29:1
JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY NURSING
“Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for arrival....” The noise from a 3-inch speaker crackles over my head and I glance out the window, easily identifying the white pines and dogwoods that line the banks of the Potomac, the familiar spires that signal the location of the National Cathedral, and the Statue of Freedom perched atop a magnificent Rotunda like an exclamation point in the distant skyline. Through opposite portals, I catch a glimpse of rolling green Virginia acres with endless rows of meticulously placed granite markers that arouse my sense of patriotism. Life itself should be so orderly.... “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God,” reads the inscription for an Unknown Soldier entombed at Arlington National Cemetery. Here, human struggle and sacrifice meet peace and tranquility at a place that honors the living as much as it memorializes the dead. In the past few years, I have had the occasion to visit Washington, DC, often. I have learned a lot about greatness amidst tragedy at our nation’s museums and memorials. I think about the sacrifices endured by the 245,000 persons, including 653 nurses, who are interred at Arlington National Cemetery and the costs to their families and to our world society.
1
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE/Robinson
Acknowledgment
soldiers. As the war went on, the nurses were “reduced to eating anything they could find—dogs, frogs, even rats.”1 WWII federal monies were available for men to become pilots and physicians. Male nurses often hid their nursing education and accomplished more through other duties within the military. Those who acknowledged their nursing experience served as privates while, in an unusual twist of discrimination, female counterparts served as officers. During US invasions of our generation, war also claimed more than its fair share of colleagues and heroes. The front lines of today’s battles have now reached our own shores. Wounded victims arrive in the aftermath of conflagrations in New York, Washington, Waco, and Oklahoma City. In addition to bloodborne pathogens, we now have to worry about mailborne pathogens. Thirty years following a presidential assassination, the term “sniper” has new meaning to friends, relatives, and colleagues in neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia. Although public opinion polls taken in 1945 showed that 73% of Americans supported drafting (female) nurses, that step has never been necessary (although a Selective Service bill for nurses was actually signed into law by President Roosevelt). In our national experience, including 9/11, nurses are still the first ones who line up en masse during disasters to volunteer. The question now is whether there will be any nurses. As a recent Patient Safety Task Force2 reports, “nurses are leaving the bedside for many reasons, including working conditions such as undesirable hours, understaffing, increased patient loads, poor pay and benefits, work redesign, and greater risks in the workplace.” In spite of the advertising rhetoric from health care administrators in the local classified ads, I am finding less than ideal working conditions at many hospitals these days. Although fortunately we do not have to tolerate the austere conditions that our battle-weary colleagues endured in Antietam, Corregidor, and Vietnam, newer dangers and difficulties are increasingly real to nursing contemporaries in 2003. I am proud to be a nurse and I am proud of the contributions that nurses have made over the years. Whether civilian or military, nurses continue to serve their country and humankind with knowledge, skill, and compassion. On behalf of grateful patients and families everywhere, thank you for the years of caring!
June Andrea Sue Barnason Nancy Bonalumi Karen Kernan Bryant Frank Cole Frank Cunningham Kathy Dolan Lynn Eastes Kathy Emde Dennis Emerson Catherine Ferrario Susan Fitzgerald Laurie Flaherty Julia Fultz Valerie GA Grossman Deborah Parkman Henderson June Howland-Gradman
2
JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY NURSING
For giving me a profound understanding of the meaning of sacrifice, I gratefully acknowledge The Women In Military Service For America Memorial. This is a unique, living memorial that honors all military women—past, present, and future—including women who have served in the US defense during all eras and in all services. For more information, visit the following Web site: http://www.womensmemorial.org/
REFERENCES 1. Weatherford D. American women and World War II. In: Milestones: a chronology of American women’s history. New York: Facts on File; 1992. 2. Patient Safety Task Force, American College of Emergency Physicians. Patient safety in the emergency department environment. Presented at American College of Emergency Physicians conference, Dallas, 2001.
Reviewers’ Acknowledgment The Journal of Emergency Nursing gratefully acknowledges the time, effort, expertise, and advice donated by the following reviewers of this issue’s content: Diane Lapsley Linda Ledray Irene Louda Christine May Carrie McCoy Ben Melnykovich Joan Meunier-Sham Patricia Mian Allison Muller Colleen O’Brien Deborah Pentecost Jim Richmann Linda Scheetz Robert A. Schwab Deb Smith Linda Snyder
29:1 February 2003
Centuries of History...Centuries of Caring
Kathy Robinson, RN, Bloomsburg, Pa
Kathy Robinson is president of the Emergency Nurses Association and a member of the Susquehanna chapter; E-mail: [email protected]. J Emerg Nurs 2003;29:1-2. Copyright © 2003 by the Emergency Nurses Association. 0099-1767/2003 $30.00 + 0 doi:10.1067/men.2003.27
Deborah Sampson, who lived in the late 1700s, is the first woman known to have impersonated a man in order to join the Army. She fought valiantly, and when she was wounded in battle, she tended to her own injuries so that her gender would not be discovered. During the Spanish American War, nurse Clara Maass volunteered to be bitten by a mosquito in the quest to find a vaccine for yellow fever. Four hundred military nurses died from a highly contagious form of influenza during World War I. Countless nurses were among those who landed—and were killed—on Normandy shores during the D-Day invasion. When surviving nurses were bombed in field hospitals, they gathered wounded soldiers in the basements of abandoned buildings and crawled on their hands and knees to dispense medications. World War II created a shortage of nurses in civilian hospitals. The Cadet Nurse Corps was created in 1943 and used recruiting slogans such as, “The Girl With a Future, Be a Cadet Nurse.” Under the auspices of the US Public Health Service, nurses could “serve while they learned.” Tuition, books, a stipend, and a uniform were provided; this “benefit” was highly valued by women who otherwise would not have received a college education because of the Great Depression. (Note: most nursing schools in the 1940s did not accept married women, and in the early years of the Cadet Nurse Corps, African American women were prohibited from enlisting.) During World War II, 67 Army nurses, along with about a dozen Navy nurses, were captured by the Japanese and held as prisoners of war on the small Philippine island of Corregidor for more than 3 years in primitive conditions at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Hepatitis, malaria, and typhoid fever gripped these courageous women, who endured their own debilitating illnesses while continuing to take care of sick and injured
February 2003 29:1
JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY NURSING
“Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for arrival....” The noise from a 3-inch speaker crackles over my head and I glance out the window, easily identifying the white pines and dogwoods that line the banks of the Potomac, the familiar spires that signal the location of the National Cathedral, and the Statue of Freedom perched atop a magnificent Rotunda like an exclamation point in the distant skyline. Through opposite portals, I catch a glimpse of rolling green Virginia acres with endless rows of meticulously placed granite markers that arouse my sense of patriotism. Life itself should be so orderly.... “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God,” reads the inscription for an Unknown Soldier entombed at Arlington National Cemetery. Here, human struggle and sacrifice meet peace and tranquility at a place that honors the living as much as it memorializes the dead. In the past few years, I have had the occasion to visit Washington, DC, often. I have learned a lot about greatness amidst tragedy at our nation’s museums and memorials. I think about the sacrifices endured by the 245,000 persons, including 653 nurses, who are interred at Arlington National Cemetery and the costs to their families and to our world society.
1
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE/Robinson
Acknowledgment
soldiers. As the war went on, the nurses were “reduced to eating anything they could find—dogs, frogs, even rats.”1 WWII federal monies were available for men to become pilots and physicians. Male nurses often hid their nursing education and accomplished more through other duties within the military. Those who acknowledged their nursing experience served as privates while, in an unusual twist of discrimination, female counterparts served as officers. During US invasions of our generation, war also claimed more than its fair share of colleagues and heroes. The front lines of today’s battles have now reached our own shores. Wounded victims arrive in the aftermath of conflagrations in New York, Washington, Waco, and Oklahoma City. In addition to bloodborne pathogens, we now have to worry about mailborne pathogens. Thirty years following a presidential assassination, the term “sniper” has new meaning to friends, relatives, and colleagues in neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia. Although public opinion polls taken in 1945 showed that 73% of Americans supported drafting (female) nurses, that step has never been necessary (although a Selective Service bill for nurses was actually signed into law by President Roosevelt). In our national experience, including 9/11, nurses are still the first ones who line up en masse during disasters to volunteer. The question now is whether there will be any nurses. As a recent Patient Safety Task Force2 reports, “nurses are leaving the bedside for many reasons, including working conditions such as undesirable hours, understaffing, increased patient loads, poor pay and benefits, work redesign, and greater risks in the workplace.” In spite of the advertising rhetoric from health care administrators in the local classified ads, I am finding less than ideal working conditions at many hospitals these days. Although fortunately we do not have to tolerate the austere conditions that our battle-weary colleagues endured in Antietam, Corregidor, and Vietnam, newer dangers and difficulties are increasingly real to nursing contemporaries in 2003. I am proud to be a nurse and I am proud of the contributions that nurses have made over the years. Whether civilian or military, nurses continue to serve their country and humankind with knowledge, skill, and compassion. On behalf of grateful patients and families everywhere, thank you for the years of caring!
June Andrea Sue Barnason Nancy Bonalumi Karen Kernan Bryant Frank Cole Frank Cunningham Kathy Dolan Lynn Eastes Kathy Emde Dennis Emerson Catherine Ferrario Susan Fitzgerald Laurie Flaherty Julia Fultz Valerie GA Grossman Deborah Parkman Henderson June Howland-Gradman
2
JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY NURSING
For giving me a profound understanding of the meaning of sacrifice, I gratefully acknowledge The Women In Military Service For America Memorial. This is a unique, living memorial that honors all military women—past, present, and future—including women who have served in the US defense during all eras and in all services. For more information, visit the following Web site: http://www.womensmemorial.org/
REFERENCES 1. Weatherford D. American women and World War II. In: Milestones: a chronology of American women’s history. New York: Facts on File; 1992. 2. Patient Safety Task Force, American College of Emergency Physicians. Patient safety in the emergency department environment. Presented at American College of Emergency Physicians conference, Dallas, 2001.
Reviewers’ Acknowledgment The Journal of Emergency Nursing gratefully acknowledges the time, effort, expertise, and advice donated by the following reviewers of this issue’s content: Diane Lapsley Linda Ledray Irene Louda Christine May Carrie McCoy Ben Melnykovich Joan Meunier-Sham Patricia Mian Allison Muller Colleen O’Brien Deborah Pentecost Jim Richmann Linda Scheetz Robert A. Schwab Deb Smith Linda Snyder
29:1 February 2003