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Show Cadet Nurses Serve As They Learn Tasks Training Takes 2 Years; 65,000 More Needed for Important Hospital Work. It's a theory of many employers that a new employee is a liability until un-til he or she has been with the firm at least four months. But if your employer em-ployer is Uncle Sam and you're a U. S. cadet nurse, that theory is definitely defi-nitely outmoded. Within much less time than four months often in as short a time as a month a student nurse is. actually doing useful work around her training hospital, relieving reliev-ing experienced nurses for the more skilled duties. True, the complete training of a cadet nurse lasts for two years or longer. But the process of educating a nurse is one of theory integrated with practice, and the practice period pe-riod of a student nurse's training is one of the most important contribu tions to the efficiency of the modern American hospital. From the time she finishes her preclinical pre-clinical training a period of classroom class-room studies the cadet nurse begins be-gins to take on more oi the responsibilities responsi-bilities of patient-care, always, of course, under supervision. Any woman who has- had a baby lately has probably seen plenty of these students scurrying about the halls of the maternity ward; and though the patient may not have realized it at the time, much of the pre-delivery care which she had was the work of one of these students. In the labor room, for instance, a student nurse may be assigned to keep constant watch over the patient, pa-tient, taking her pulse, timing her pains and keeping the doctor constantly con-stantly informed of her condition. Wide Variety of Tasks. In the delivery room the new born baby may be handed over to a student stu-dent nurse while the doctor and graduate nurse complete the care of the mother. In one Eastern hospital hos-pital a student nurse is always assigned as-signed to stay with the mother for an hour after delivery to check on her condition before she is removed to her private room or the ward. When the mother gets the first look at her infant, chances are that it's been a student nurse, masked and gowned, who has given him his first soothing oiling. And in all of the nursery duties, the student plays an important part, taking babies to mothers for feeding or giving others oth-ers their bottles. Hospitals must provide service in operating rooms 24 hours a day, ready for any emergency. Few hospitals hos-pitals these days have staffs of grad- ir uate nurses adequate for such a schedule. So the student nurse steps in to help. Under the supervision of a graduate nurse, students are trained to perform many of the routine rou-tine duties of the operating room. They may set up the instrument table, ta-ble, lay out the doctor's gloves and gather together the sterile equipment equip-ment necessary for the operation. There are countless other duties which a student nurse may perform within a very few weeks of the time she starts training. She may be assigned to duty in the emergency emergen-cy room, in tSie diet kitchen, the wards, the admitting office. Depending Depend-ing on the customs of the hospital, she may be responsible for bathing and feeding patients, giving medications, medica-tions, assisting doctors with, treatments treat-ments and dressings, making beds or supervising recreational activities activi-ties in the children's wards and among convalescents. A War and Peacetime Job. Wherever they are, student nurses are valiantly contributing to the work of the hospital not just sitting and studying books. And without them, the splendid work of American Ameri-can hospitals cannot go on. For there is a serious shortage of graduate gradu-ate nurses. The army wants graduate gradu-ate nurses. So does the navy. The few who are left cannot possibly keep up with the overcrowded conditions con-ditions unless they have the help of student nurses. Under the U. S. cadet nurse corps, the government is asking 65,-000 65,-000 young women to enroll in schools of nursing for a 24 to 30-month training train-ing period. It's a war job but a war job which will be just as useful after the war as it is necessary now. |