Friday. December 4, 1981The Daily tar Heel1 5
tress
lies nursing students
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By BEVERLY SHEPARD
"Nobody understands the stress nursing students are under
except other nursing students," said Annette (not her real
name), a senior nursing major. "Sometimes, I ask myself 'Is
it worth it?' 1 know it is, but you question it sometimes."
For UNC's 309 nursing majors, the challenges of becoming
a licensed nurse lie within the classrooms of Carrington Hall,
the UNC School of Nursing, and in areas of practical applica
tion outside that building as well. When undergraduates enter
their very first nursing course on day one, they encounter a
set of obstacles academic, financial and clinical that make
the road to obtaining a bachelor of science degree in nursing
all but an easy one.
Criteria for admission include a "B" grade point average, a
minimum of two letters of reference and a written statement
giving reasons for choosing nursing as a career. An admis
sions interview may or may not follow these procedures.
Students usually are notified of their semester acceptance or
rejection in the spring of their sophomore year.
Undergraduate majors must take 61 hours in nursing
courses and clinical practice, in addition to two upper-level
elective courses during their junior and senior years.
Most students describe the nursing curriculum as being very
rigorous. In addition to the normal academic load, there are
final exams, which for juniors, are scheduled consecutively.
Annette remembers her junior finals one every day for five
consecutive days all too well.
'I was crazy
Annette said. "I came home one day,
and I just cried like a baby I was so exhausted. I had my
hardest one pathophysiology the last day. By that time, I
was so exhausted and so frustrated, I was numb."
In addition to the classes, nursing students also are required
to practice clinical rotation 10 hours a week for juniors and
16 hours a week for seniors. N.C. Memorial Hospital, and
other medical centers including those in Fayetteville, Burl
ington and Raleigh.
For students assigned to out-of-town centers, considerable
inconvenience is caused by the travel. Alma Halley, a junior
nursing major from Wilson has been assigned to Raleigh's
Wake Medical Center for the second half of spring semester.
Her rotation begins at 6:45 a.m.; for Holley, that means x
setting her alarm clock for 5 a.m.
For nursing students, the stress extends beyond the
classroom into practical clinical experience. Mike McGinnis, a
1981 UNC nursing graduate and a medical staff nurse at N.C.
Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit, agreed.
"Anytime you're working with people, anytime they're
sick, . . . that's stressful," McGinnis said. "That's not like
you're working on a machine you can make a mistake. (But
in nursing), you're working ona human being."
It is also the type of major that does not allow students to
forget about their daily experiences once they are away from
the hospital setting, said Laurel Copptdean of the UNC
School of Nursing.
"Students go home from work, but they don't go off duty.
They worry," Copp said. "Nursing is highly personal with
people in pain, dying and in great need. . .you don't get used
to those things. Sometimes, it gets harder by the cumulative
number."
.... "Some nursin&studenis say 'well just fbrge:t it',. . V
and I see where they are coming from, " Annette said.
"There's been people who drop out of my classes fall
break because they can't handle the stress anymore. "
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In addition to the demanding academics, nursing school is
also very expensive, Halley pointed out.
The cost of one nursing text may be as little as $4 or more
than $300 on books and her uniform alone. .It is not unusual
to spend up to $200 for nursing texts in one semester,
Annette said.
Hallcy's semester syllabus cost $16, her books totaled $170.
Two un;forms, two name tags and two caps cost her $102.
Th- .t..Hnt handbook for the UNC School of Nursing
estimated expenses, for an in-state junior nursing major to
uiai $4,2; ).50 for an academic year and $762 for one six
veek summer -:on.
Perhaps it is the pressure the rigorous academic studying
combined with the clinical challenges that binds nursing
majors with a distinct sense of comaradarie.
"We try to help each other, even if it's nothing but to
listen to each other complain," Annette said.
"There's hardly any competition between (nursing students)
because everyone is trying to do their best, not better than
someone else," Halley said. "Nursing isn't like business
administration where whoever makes the best grades gets the
best job. It's more a responsibility to yourself to know your
job because you're the one that has to give the care to
someone else."
Of UNC's 310 nursing students, only 24 are black. No
formal support system exists for nursing majors and the lack
of such a group is felt more acutely by the small numbers of
blacks who have formed an informal support group of their
own, Annette said. "
"Students go home from work, but they don't go
off duty. They worry, ' Copp said. "Nursing is highly
personal with people in pain, dying and in great need
. . .you don't get used to those things. Sometimes, it
gets harder by the cumulative number. "
"It may be true that we (blacks) segregate ourselves but if
we do, it's because (Black students feel they) need each
other," Annette said. .
"I haven't faced any overt racism but I feel under a lot of
presure being in an all-white clinical setting. All eyes are on
you."
"Right now, most of the nursing students are in a panic
state because of the decreased scores in the state boards,"
Annette said. "I can hear my classmates everyday when they
make a low score (on a test) say, 'I'm not going to pass (the
state boards.' "
Indeed, there has been "a lot of publicity surrounding the
test scores. According to a report published by the UNC
Board of Governors, all 69 of UNC's nursing graduates pass
ed the exam in 1973 for a 100 percent passing rate. In 1981
however, only 104 out of 125 passed for 83.2 percent passing
rate. .' '
But both Copp and Audrey Booth, a professor and
associate dean of the UNC School of Nursing, said other
factors the increased numbers of nursing majors and a
decline in the scores of standardized tests in general may
have contributed to the decreased scores in the nursing board
exam. '
"I think (the scores have) been reported out of context
with the rest of the story," Copp said. "The bulk of the
students not only got more than 350 but they got excellent
:: scores." - ; . - -
1 McOinnisal graduate; 'with'a '3.8 average is one exam
ple, she said. Out of 800 possible points, McGinnis scored
more than 700 points on one part and more than 500 points
on each part of the exam.
Other nursing officials have disagreed with Copp and say
more emphasis should be placed on the passing of every sec
tion of: the test in which 350 is the minimum passing score.
While these officials continue to disagree over the causes of and
wnuc I'JKrx w. wiw acoici, uuc uiulg remains cuiiMam tne
anxiety felt by nursing majors yet to take the exam. They
know that failure to pass the exam means failure to attain a
license to practice nursing.
A new test, used for the first time in July, will substitute
the five separate scores for a combined score.
r OTHJay Hyman
"Some nursing students say, 'well just forget it', . . . and I
see where they are coming from," Annette said. "There's
been people who drop out of my classes fall break because
they can't handle the stress anymore. People drop out every
day." .
Still, others remain. Some, like Halley who has 10 relatives
who are nurses or nursing majors, are certain that nursing is
their only possible career choice. For others, there is the
satisfaction gained in helping people.
"But you don't get that satisfaction everyday ... that's
why you have to be intrinsically motivated to help people,"
Annette said. "You have to deep-down want to help in order
to be satisfied with your nursing career."
"You get burned out, (too)," Halley said. "You give so
much of yourself . . , you need somebody to give to you
sometimes."
But eveh more important to the students who eventually do
become licensed is their self-made commitment to a career
that will demand that they give even more of themselves than
they have given already.
"Survival of the fittest describes the students at UNC's
nursing school," Annette said. "I have shed tears ... I have
come too far. Only the strong will survive and I'm going to
make it."
Beverly Shepard is a senior journalism major from Jacksonville.
5
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Geor3 Wallace during a 1975 visit to North Carolina
Vallate!
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The campaign trail beckons an old demagogue
By GEOFFREY MOCK
John Patterson out-nigguhed me.
And boys, I'm not goin' to be out
nigguhed again.
George Wallace, 1958
George Wallace has defined much
of the political contours of the South
for over a decade. His style has been
one of a salesman of bottled miracle
potions and his followers in Alabama
have been of the rural dirt farmers and
smalltown Elks and Shrine members.
A refusal to quit is the essence of such
a man, and after four unsuccessful
presidential campaigns, it seems now
that not only is Wallace unwilling to"
fade quietly away, but is ready once
again to run for governor of Ala
bama. If Wallace was to quit, he would
have done so long ago. He knows little
of life other than that of a politician,
and if his persistence makes him look
foolish to some, it also gives him the
qualities that have made him one of
the few genuine American political
folk-heroes. "The political breathing
in him is as essential to him as water is
to a turtle," said Marshall Frady,
author of Wallace, a political biogra
phy of the former governor.
Certainly Wallace cannot be running
for any lack of accomplishments. While
the presidency may have eluded him,
his campaign of "Send Them A
Message" and his stunning success in
urban blue collar areas in the north in
1968 and 1972, paved the way for
another southerner to that office.
"There probably would never have
been a Jimmy Carter without a
George Wallace," Frady said. "Carter
was an extension nationally of what
Wallace was doing by going directly to
the populace."
Wallace failed nationally because
popular conceptions had pegged him
as a politician of a past period. Carter,
free of the stigma of Wallace's racial
appeals, could nevertheless take ad
vantage of the path laid out by Wal
lace. "In the end Wallace would have
been a touch too tacky for national
tastes," Frady said.. "Jimmy Carter
was the great synthesis that could win.
Wallace could make collosal mischief,
but he would not have been the one to
, breakthrough."
Nationally, Wallace was to Carter
what in Alabama Big Jim Folsom was
to Wallace. In the 1950 s Folsom was
the first populist politician to oppose
successfully the conservative hierarchy
that had dominated Alabama since the
end of Reconstruction. Folsom was a
six-foot-eight giant of a man whose
mannerisms showed every bit of his
rural upbringing in the wiregrass
counties of southeast Alabama. He
was also years ahead of Wallace and
almost every other Southern politician
at the time in racial views.
"Folsom didn't believe in legal seg
regation," said Colenan B. Ransone,
a political science professor at the Uni
versity of Alabama. "He believed in
black people voting. He couldn't get
that part of his program through the
legislature."
When Folsom won re-election to
the governorship in 1954 he seemed on
the verge of crushing the state's con
servative power structure. Following
in his steps was a young George Wal
lace. "Folsom's opposition was the
combination of big planter and banker
interests," Ransone said. "He went
out getting small contributions from
the populace for his support. He was a
real populist."
But 1954 was also the year of Brown
v. Topeka Board of Education, and
southern politics was never the same
again. "When Folsom was in power,
segregation wasn't discussed," Ran
sone said. "It was clearcut, legal seg
regation. He was at the end of an
era."
Segregation became the issue in
Alabama politics. Folsom's heavy
drinking habits were publicized and
his position on race was untenable.
Wallace, who had served under Fol-:
som as a member of the board of the
then all-black Tuskegee Institute, saw
that political expediency demanded a
split with his mentor.
"Folsom offered a great promise
for the South," Frady said. "But he
systematically bombed himself into
oblivion with the bottle. Wallace broke
with him after Folsom invited Adam
Clayton Powell to the governor's man
sion. That would be innocuous now,
but it had apocalyptic implications
back then."
Folsom populist coalition broke
along racial lines. Wallace's transfor
mation from liberal populist to racist
demagogue was completed in 1958
when after losing the gubernatorial
campaign to conservative John Patter
son. Awakened along with other
Southern whites to the battle for seg
regation, Wallace promised never to
be "out-niggered" again.
' But with the exception of the race
issue, Wallace continued to carry much
of Folsom's platform into the 1960s.
Through Wallace's efforts, the con
servative elite's stranglehold on state
politics continued to be diminished.
"He didn't have the support of the
newspapers and big brokers," Frady
said. "To him that meant nothing
against the excitement and relish of his
popular support.. That was a simple
perception, but still one of a mark of
genius."
His almost clownist, demagogic ap
peals led many of his conservative op
ponents to belittle him, but to those
who were stirred by his appeals he
could do little wrong. "He talked like
the people," Frady said. "He ate like
them. He dressed like them. He was the
articulate in the flesh of the general
populace's way of life."
"Wallace's reputation outside the
state is not like the way he was in
state," Ransone said. "He was con
servative on only one issue race. He
was a populist of the old system. He
helped higher education in the state.
He believed in spending on poor peo
ple and on highways and education."
Numerous other demagogues rose
to influence in the South along with
Wallace. Unlike Wallace, however,
men like Lester Maddox and Orval
Faubus were easily co-opted into their
state's conservative elite. Only Wallace
remained true to his support. "He
relished his position as an outsider,"
Frady 'said. "Wallace once snorted
that 'Maddox doesn't have any char
acter.' "
But those who fondly remembered
Folsom could only view Wallace with
a feeling of betrayal. He touched legit
imate concerns of a needy populace
with illegitimate means. Entering the
1960s, the state was 49th in almost
every social index in the nation and
going nowhere. Wallace brought po
litical improvement, but the state is '
still paying the racial costs of his rule.;
"In that he changed the political dy
namics of the state he did benefit Ala
bama," Frady said. "But what he did
with that change didn't benefit it. Ala
bama was a dark state to be in during
the 1960s and that is attributable to
the tone Wallace gave it. That should
never be forgotten."
The lesson clearly is that the radical
change Alabama, needed could not be
made through Wallace's racist appeals.
"He could have done it through other
means," Frady said. "But he did it
through the quickest means. That was
through anger. That anger often took
the form of racism."
Because of the nature of Wallace's
appeal, his reform was incomplete.
When the segregationist fervor died
out, so did the spirit for reform and
during the 1970s the conservative elite
has ma;ntained its position. "If I am
looking for money (for a campaign) in
Tuscaloosa now," Ransone said, "I'd
look toward the same people that
Folsom ran against."
Now he is testing the waters for a
race for governor. It is hard to tell
whether the spectacle that is George
Wallace reflects the old sly political in
stincts or is instead a sign of hanging
on for too long. Certainly he has mel
lowed his racial line and already has
picked up an endorsement from one
black leader. But he has shown little
of this characteristic vitality. Without
that he becomes just another politi
cian. ' Geoffrey Mock, a senior political sci
ence major from Baltimore, Md., is
Associate Editor for The Daily Tar
Heel.
A Icoho l-relt&ted uccidents force second look ut legul drivi
king
By KERRY DeROCHI
The drunken driver always has been a deadly
threat. But where the number of alcohol-related
accidents once was a mere cause for concern, the
increasing highway fatalities now approach emer
gency proportions. Each year more and more peo
ple are killed at the hands of a stranger who has had
too many martinis after work or that last glass of
champagne at a cocktail party.
An estimated 26,000 people died last year on the
nation's highways because of a drunk driver. In
North Carolina the number of drug- or alcohol
related accidents increased by 13.9 percent from
1979 to 1980. About 83,000 people were arrested
for driving under the influence in 1980, a 16 per
cent increase from the previous year.
The alarming statistics have sent government of
ficials nationwide searching for plausible solutions
to the problem. Their attention has been directed
toward the legal drinking age. Since the ratification
of the 26th amendment in 1971, which gave the
right to vote to 18 year olds, 29 states have lowered
the legal drinking age for this same age group Under
the philosophy that a person old enough to vote
was old enough to drink.
Today, that philosophy has changed. Legislators
now acknowledge that the lower drinking age may
have caused more problems than they had expected.
The accessibility of beer and liquor to minors has
increased by allowing teenagers to purchase beer
and wine in most states, and liquor in others.
There needs to be more concern on the
part of the public. They need to realize that
driving under the influence is basically a
crime.
Lt. Arnold Rector
. Because of the high rate of alcohol-related acci
dents in the 18-20 age group, 15 states since 1976
have raised the legal drinking age back to 20 or 21 .
State officials based their actions on statistics that
support when a drinking age has been raised, the
number of highway accidents decline. For exam
ple, when Michigan legislators raised the legal
drinking age from 18 to 21 in 1978, the number of
non-injury accidents dropped 17 percent for 18-20
year-olds; accidents involving a death dropped 28
percent.
In North Carolina, state officials have discussed
the possibility of raising the drinking age for beer
and wine to 21 . Edwin C. Guy, coordinator for the
governor's traffic safety program, said he believed
the General Assembly would reconsider the drink
ing age in the next session. "I think the support
will basically come from our office and the people
of North Carolina," he said. "And when it comes
from the people of North Carolina, it will go
through."
Perhaps a more critical problem facing govern
ment and law officials is the problem of penalty
enforcement. Under North Carolina law, a person
guilty of DUI for the first offense, must pay a $ 100
fine plus court costs and lose the driver's license
for one year. But in 1980, of the 83,000 arrested,
only 50.1 percent of them had to pay this penalty;
25 percent received lighter sentences for a lesser of
fense, such as reckless driving. ;
Lt. Arnold Rector coordinator of traffic safety
for the N.C. Highway Patrol, said the reduced sen
tences have resulted from misuse of a clause in the
General Statutes that allows a judge to grant the
convicted driver driving privileges if a job or item
of equal magnitude was at stake. "Of these restric
tions or non-restrictions, some are very lax," Rec
tor said. "Some so lenient, it's almost as if (the
people) were never charged for driving drunk."
The low conviction rate sad the light sentencing
has reduced the strength of state highway safety
programs by thwarting law officials enl'orcement
efforts. "For a traffic safety program to be effec
tive, there has to be an effective judicial system,
the deterrent to keep people from violating the
law," Rector said.
, Recognizing the enforcement of DUI as a prob-
As federal government officials begin
considering and debating the differing
solutions to the problems of drunk
driving, the states must take the initiative
in halting the number of highway deaths.
lem, the governor's office began a program in No
vember designed to help localities such as Raleigh,
Hickory, and Henderson strengthen their enforce
ment tactics. Guy said the office also has renewed
efforts to educate the public on the risks involved
with driving under the influence. By circulating
. pamphlets, they have attempted to enforce the idea
that the chance of being apprehended while driving
drunk was very high.
"There needs to be more concern on the part of
the public," Rector said. "They need to realize
that driving under the influence is basically a
crime."
age
On the national level, 303 congressmen have
signed a letter recently urging President Reagan to
form a commission to construct a realistic solution
to the,problem. Reagan earlier had said he would
not support a congressional bill that required states
to set mandatory jail sentences for repeat offenders
pr risk losing federal highway safety money. Rea
gan said he believed this type of federal govern
ment's involvement in this problem would be an
infringement on state's rights.
As federal government officials begin consider
ing and debating the differing solutions to the
problems of drunk driving, the states must take the
initiative in halting the number of highway deaths.
Raising the legal drinking age may provide the first
step toward a final solution, but it in no way can
be considered the answer. Instead, stringent penal
ties and public appeals against excessive drinking
followed by driving must be reinforced. Then,
perhaps that last round of Long Island ice teas
may wane" in importance with the realization that
once on the road, human lives will be at stake.
Kerry DeRochi, a junior journalism English ma
jor from Greensboro, is an editorial writer for The
Daily Tar Heel.