Nurse Training

The final set of photos by Fritz Henle of these ladies learning the art of hospital caregiving in 1942. Previous sets here, here, and here.

Student nurses must be versed in occupational therapy. This student entertains youngsters in a convalescing ward.

  

Student nurses, like millions of other United States citizens, are today taking Red Cross First Aid courses, but with a difference. These students of nursing are taught not only to give first aid in case of air raids or other war or peacetime emergencies, but also how to deal with amateur first aiders. Here a group of young nurses adjust a traction splint on a fellow "victim".

  

Student nurses, like Susan Petty of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, are rendering their country a great service by making it possible for experienced nurses to join the Army or Navy Nurse Corps. Relieved of such civilian duties as administering injections to patients like this smiling youngster, graduate nurses are tending America's fighting men in distant parts of the world.

  

Student observation of operations in schools of nursing and medicine has brought about the development of various styles of amphitheatres. This dome arrangement is unique in the United States. While eye operations are in progress in the room below, the students observe through powerful binoculars attached to the dome.

  

Taking care of an oxygen-tent patient is one of the many duties which 

students like young Susan Petty must perform during their apprenticeship.

  

The "morning circle" starts the day's work for the student nurses. Here students get their assignment and learn what problems must be dealt with on the floor.

  

The nurse must learn to carry out complicated and constantly changing instructions of the doctor attending this patient who has undergone a cut arthroplasty operation.

  

The why and wherefores of nutrition are mastered 

by student nurses during their hospital training period.

  

Through classes in pediatrics, student nurses learn how the right toys can be almost as important in getting a sick child well, as medicine and diet.

  

When student nurses have completed much of their training they can relieve nurses such as this one for war service, and can take over such duties as attending patients in corrective casts.

Vermont

These photos were taken in Vermont in 1942 by Fritz Henle.

 East Montpelier, Vermont. Charles Ormsbee's son Richard, 

aged five, who tries to help on his father's farm, 1942

  

 East Montpelier, Vermont. Marilyn, daughter of Charles Ormsbee,
is president of her 4-H club, the Montpelier Center Girls, where
she learns how to sew and cook economically and well, 1942

  

 East Montpelier, Vermont. Mrs. Myrtle Ormsbee and Marilyn, mother and daughter of farmer Charles Ormsbee. Mrs. Ormsbee is knitting sweaters for the Red Cross, 1942

  

 East Montpelier, Vermont. The Charles Ormsbee family and 

his widowed mother, Mrs. Myrtle Ormsbee, at dinner, July 1942

  

 West Danville, Vermont. "What else will it be today, Mrs. Metcalf?"
asks Mrs. Hastings, who has clerked in the general store owned
by Mr. and Mrs. Hastings for twenty-nine years, July 1942

  

 West Danville, Vermont. A load of sawdust from the 

lumber mill. The wagon saves gas and rubber, July 1942

  

 West Danville, Vermont. Frank Goss, seventy-one year old farmer, in front of Gilbert S. Hastings's general store and post office reading his mail, July 1942

  

 West Danville, Vermont. Girls from Saint Johnsbury where they are spending a weekend on Joe's Pond, looking over fishing tackle in G. S. Hastings's general store, July 1942

  

West Danville, Vermont. Maynard Clark, fourteen, and Guy Davenport, eleven, reading the air raid instructions posted in Gilbert S. Hastings's post office and general store, July 1942

Nurse Training

This is the third set of Fritz Henle's photos of nurses in training in 1942.

 In New York City's School of Nursing Residence, advanced students give the Schick and Dick test (for Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever, respectively) to the probationers.

  

 In these busy days, student nurses themselves must often instruct probationers in many things, such as methods of getting a patient from bed to wheelchair.

  

 Just as they take biology and chemistry, students of nursing "take babies" as the young nurses say. Here Susan Petty learns how to give a baby one of his first meals.

  

 Nurses as well as teachers are needed in the hospital schoolroom 

where convalescing youngsters keep up with their school work.

  

 Nurses learn the care of patients suffering from burns. Here, 

the nurse paints a boy's burned back with sulfathiasol.

  

 Nurses must not only know how to care for infants themselves, but they 

must also be able to instruct each mother in the proper care of her child.

 

 On the sun roof of Babies Hospital in New York a student nurse 

supervises convalescing youngsters in healthful play.

  

 On the sun roof of Babies Hospital, New York City, student nurse Susan Petty distributes construction toys to young convalescents and ambulatory patients.

  

 Post-operative care of patients is part of every nurse's responsibility. This nurse is showing a patient, recovering from a mastectomy, how to exercise her arm properly.

  

Student nurses may often assist doctors at operations, but a 

specially trained anaesthetist must give the anaesthetic.

Nurse Training

More photos from this group by Fritz Henle. Previous set here.

A student nurse, acting as physical therapist, points to the picture book, 

encouraging a child to learn to use his crutches

  

 A torpedoed sailor receives burn treatment from a doctor, 

with student nurse Susan Petty in attendance

[I think the torpedoed sailor is in love with Susan Petty :)]

  

 After a day of hard work and study, Susan Petty and her 

fellow student nurses enjoy a swim and frolic in the pool

  

 An important phase of every nurse's training is assisting at operations. In this 

emergency tracheotomy, the doctor is inserting a tube into the trachea.

  

 First-year students practice various sick-room techniques on 

one another. They will soon be ready for work in the wards.

  

 Highlighting a day of intensive training, mail from home 

brings a smile to this young student nurse's face

  

 In a hospital's formula kitchen, student nurses 

prepare dozens of bottles for dozens of babies

  

 In a hospital's formulae kitchen, student nurses 

prepare dozens of bottles for dozens of babies

  

 A nurse assists the doctor, who is inserting a needle 

in a patient's arm prior to a blood transfusion

  

Immediately following a blood transfusion the nurse 

must whirl the container to prevent coagulation

Nurse Training

These photos of nurses in training were taken by Fritz Henle for the War Information Office, in 1942.

 Nurse training. Fresh from college, twenty-year-old Susan Petty of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, arrives at the School of Nursing residence in New York City, which will be her home until she becomes an Army or Navy nurse. Because of her college degree, Susan will be required to spend only twenty-seven months here instead of the customary three years.

  

 Nurse training. "Occupational therapy" for the very young. Convalescence in children, as in adults, is hastened by the encouragement of interest in normal activities.

  

 Nurse training. A convalescing youngster gets lunch with a smile from a student nurse.

  

 Nurse training. A graduate nurse (right) watches student Susan Petty prepare a hypodermic for a patient. Strict adherence to doctors' orders is something every probationer must learn.

  

 Nurse training. A moment's pause in a full day, as graduate 

student nurses relax in the living room of the nurse's home.

  

 Nurse training. A nurse and the physical therapist negotiate something of a 

dispute over a picture book between two young patients in an orthopedic hospital.

  

 Nurse training. A nurse's aide and a student attend a convalescing patient.

  

 Nurse training. A student nurse (right) instructs a patient in the method 

of measuring her own insulin dose as a supervisor observes.

  

 Nurse training. Care of infants is included in all nurses training. This youngster is about to get an eye irrigation. Note that nurse wears goggles for self-protection from possible infection.

  

Nurse training. Given an hour's rest between rounds, Susan Petty, student nurse, is visited by her fellow nurses in her small but comfortable room in the School of Nursing resident hall.