And now I have a word for the Ladies, and a word for the Nurse-Probationers. Which shall come first?
Do the ladies follow up their intellectual privileges? Or, are they lazy in their hours of study? Do they cultivate their powers of expression in answering Mr. Croft’s examinations?
Ought they not to look upon themselves as future leaders—as those who will have to train others? And to bear this in mind during the whole of their year’s training, so as to qualify themselves for being so? It is not just getting through the year anyhow, without being blamed. For the year leaves a stamp on everybody—this for the Nurses as well as the Ladies—and once gone can never be regained.
To the Special Probationers may I say one more word?
Do we look enough into the importance of giving ourselves thoroughly to study in the hours of study, of keeping careful Notes of Lectures, of keeping notes of all type cases, and of cases interesting from not being type cases, so as to improve our powers of observation—all essential if we are in future to have charge? Do we keep in view the importance of helping ourselves to understand these cases by reading at the time books where we can find them described, and by listening to the remarks made by Physicians and Surgeons in going round with their Students? (Take a sly note afterwards, when nobody sees, in order to have a correct remembrance.)
So shall we do everything in our power to become proficient, not only in knowing the symptoms and what is to be done, but in knowing the “Reason Why” of such symptoms, and why such and such a thing is done; and so on, till we can some day TRAIN OTHERS to know the “reason why.”
Many say: “We have no time; the Ward work gives us no time.”
But it is so easy to degenerate into a mere drudgery about the Wards, when we have goodwill to do it, and are fonder of practical work than of giving ourselves the trouble of learning the “reason why.” Take care, or the Nurses, some of them, will catch you up.
Take ten minutes a day in the Ward to jot down things, and write them out afterwards: come punctually from your Ward to have time for doing so. It is far better to take these ten minutes to write your cases or to jot down your recollections in the Ward than to give the same ten minutes to bustling about. I am sure the Sisters would help you to get this time if you asked them: and also to leave the Ward punctually.
And do you not think this a religious duty?