DUKE
HOSPITAL
m
VOL. 10, No. 1
FEBRUARY, 1963
DURHAM, N. C.
Today’s Student
Nurse
When Duke Hospital opened in
1931, the schools of medicine and nurs-
infj opened simultaneously—fulfilling
from the beprinninff Duke Medical
Center’s traditional triple role of
treatment, teaching and research.
The School of Nursing was organ
ized by its first dean. Miss Bessie
Baker, and admitted its first class on
January 2, 1931. According to Dr.
Wilburt C. Davison in his history of
tlie first twenty years of the Medical
Center, “Miss Baker was responsible
more than anyone else for the success
of the nursing school as well as for the
progress of Duke Hospital.” Along
with other aspects of the Medical
Center, the School of Nursing pre
sents a vastly different picture today
than it did 30 years ago.
Today’s student nurse can look
forward to a profession of greatly ex
panded horizons. It is a profession
which still offers the deep personal
satisfaction of helping the sick, plus
the added security of a guarantee of
a job in her chosen specialty for the
rest of her working life. Open to her
today in addition to general nursing
are careers in such new areas as psy
chiatric nursing, intensive (post
operative) nursing, nursing in re
search areas (such as our Clinical
Research Unit) as well as the person
nel-starved field of nursing education.
Ten years ago the university
trustees realized that trends in the
field of nursing required a student to
complete a four year program leading
to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing
degree. So today’s student nurse at
Duke studies for four academic years
and three summers before acquiring
her nursing degree.
Capping—this impressive and solemn moment launclies our student into her nursing
career. At the beginning of the sopliomore year, students attend the capping ceremony in
the Duke Chapel. Here the Dean of the Chapel presides and each sophomore is capped
by her “big sister” advisor. From this time on, the student wears lier cap and uniform
on the wards. Her nursing training is really beginning now!
The student nurse must meet
virtually the same requirements faced
by any otlier freshman at Duke Uni-
vereity and faces the same stiff tiution
and fees problem encountered by all
college coeds. After acceptance her
entire freshman year (and parts of
her second and third years) are spent
taking liberal arts courses in con
junction with other freshmen. She is
definitely like every other Duke coed
during this first year except that she
lives in Hanes House Annex; takes
one introductory nursing course and
has a student nurse for a “big sister.”
While most of the Duke student
nurses are from the east coast, less
than one quarter are from North Caro
lina and there are always a sprinkling
of girls from the farthest corners of
our country in the student body of ap
proximately 300 girls. The School of
N^irsing at Duke University Medical
Center indeed is known as one of the
finest in the country.
Duke Feature
Photos by Sparks