Perception, then, is of three kinds: passive, incited by interest, and directed by will. And the perception which is the basis of accurate knowledge is one of keen interest, or of will, or of interest plus will.
Training Perception
The nurse who demands of herself that she perceive accurately paves the way for accurate, deft service in her profession. There are constant means at hand for training in the art. Suppose you try to get so definite a picture of each ward or room you enter, in a swift but attentive examination of its furnishings and their locations, and of the patients, that you can reproduce it to yourself or a friend some days later.
You come into a large ward, with a row of beds on either side of the door, and a wide central space between. How many beds in each row? There is a table at the far end of the room, opposite the door, and a nurse in white is writing there. Why does she wear white? What is her name? To your right is a closet-like room opening from the ward. That is a medicine-room, you are told. How many windows has the ward? You glance from bed to bed with a rapid passing in review of the patients. Which ones seem to you very ill? There is a large white screen about one. You are told that when treatments are given the screen is put there, or that when a patient is dying the bed is screened. You look for the ventilators, and see how many are open and how they work. You see a room-thermometer, and ask at what temperature it is kept. The nurse explains that a certain degree is ordered, and that, so far as possible, the ventilators are operated to insure that.
If your attention has followed all these details with careful, accurate perception; if you have grasped them clearly, one by one, at the time, you will be able to answer quickly next day when some one asks how many patients the wards accommodate, and how many beds are vacant. You can describe the lighting and ventilation, the room temperature, etc. And later on you will quickly see to it that a screen is properly placed when you know treatments are to be given.
Association of Ideas
After the first few years of life practically nothing enters consciousness that cannot by some likeness or contrast or kinship be connected with something already there. Were it not for this saving economy memory would be helpless. So the nurse who is in earnest and eager to master her new work will not only perceive carefully each detail of arrangement, but in two or three days at most will know each patient there; she will have worked out a system of associations, remembering not a meaningless name, but an individual with certain characteristics which she ties up with her name, and so gives it a definite personality. She thereafter recalls not merely a patient, but a very special patient; and as she comes to mind she brings a title with her, which is her symbol. Likewise when her name is spoken or thought, she herself comes into the nurse’s immediate consciousness. A bed in a certain part of the room will be no longer merely a bed, but Mrs. Brown’s bed. Remembering can be made easy by using some such method as this:
The first bed to the right as you enter is Mrs. Meade’s. She is the woman with the broken hip. The next is Mrs. Blake’s, that blonde, big woman who wants more attention than any one else. The third is Mrs. Bunting’s. She has wonderful, curling black hair, and a nice response to everything done for her. The next beyond is Mrs. O’Neil’s. She looks as Irish as her name sounds, and you will remember her by that. So each bed comes to mean a certain patient, and each patient comes to suggest the ones on either side of her—her neighbors. Blondeness and bigness together call Mrs. Blake to mind. Broken hip means Mrs. Meade, etc. Each individual on that side of the ward becomes associated with a name which stands for definite characteristics.
Then you begin at the left bed nearest the door and follow the occupants back on that side. You may remember better by jotting them down in order of the beds, with names and a brief comment on each patient. Keep that list on a small card in your pocket for reference for a day or two, then depend on memory entirely. I have personally found this an excellent method.
You are expected to be able to turn quickly to any medicines needed in emergency, and you soon learn to remember them and where they are placed by the arrangement into classes or kinds, which most hospitals require. Cathartics are together, hypnotics together, etc. So when you want cascara you associate it with cathartic and turn to that shelf. You learn very soon that poison medicines are kept apart from the others, and quickly associate the poison label with danger to patients, necessity of locking safely away and hiding the key from any but those responsible for the care of the sick.