It is interesting to note that nursing educators in the professional field today are stressing many of the fundamental principles enunciated by the early educational leaders of our denomination. Perhaps there has never been a time in which there has been so much emphasis on the importance of health teaching and health education as we find today in nursing educational circles. At the annual meeting of the National League of Nursing Educators in New Orleans, held April 24-28, this was again emphasized.
If we are to develop nurses conscious of their responsibility as teachers of health, we were told that every clinical-service supervisor should plan a program of experience and instruction which will prepare the student to do such teaching to the patients placed under her care. The student who will be the graduate nurse of tomorrow must see the patient not just as a hospital case, but as an individual living in a family and in a community. It was recommended that definite provision be made for field trips to community health agencies each year during the course of study, and that students be required to make home contacts with a given number of patients, so that they may understand better the counsel that should be given in harmony with the home and community situation in which the patient will find himself following his hospitalization.
This is all in harmony with what we as Seventh-day Adventists• have held to, at least in theory, throughout the .years of the development of our system of nursing education. But we often have become so busy with the machinery of the institutional program that we have forgotten our responsibility as health teachers to the patient. And in some instances, hospitals and institutions have become so out of touch with community problems that the faculties of institutions maintaining schools of nursing have not been prepared to give to the students this vision of their work as health educators.
It is good for those of us who are preparing young women for foreign as well as home missionary service to have these things reemphasized. Much emphasis was also placed on the need of nursing the entire patient. We can no longer think only of the physical welfare or of the physical diagnosis of the patient. Theodore A. Watters, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Tulane University, stated:
"There is no such thing as a physical examination or a mental examination. The two go together. The only time to separate the two is on the autopsy table. Keep in mind that we are dealing with every patient as an individual, not with just mind or body. We work with people, not with bodies or minds separately."
In the session on guidance, the delegates were reminded that students come to a school of nursing knowing practically nothing in the professional field. But in the extraprofessional field, they come with habits, ideals, attitudes, and interests, and with much to unlearn.
Lucille Petry, of the University of Minnesota School ,of Nursing, reminded us that "a patient is as much nursed by what a nurse is, as by what a nurse does." For this reason, she should learn the true values of life as an individual while she is in the school of nursing. Any extracurricular program may be evaluated by the eagerness, zest, and humor with which the student participates voluntarily. While she should be taught some of the values of extracurricular group activity, she should also be taught the courage and enjoyment that come from being alone.
We were often reminded of statements by Sister White relative to the preparation of nurses: "Too much incomplete work has been done in the education given. The most useful education is that found in practical work."—Mrs. E. G. White MS, 115, 1903, quoted in "Loma Linda Messages," p. 154. In speaking of the preparation of leaders and teachers in the field of nursing, she also says:
"There are many who are in such haste to climb to distinction that they skip some of the rounds of the ladder, and in so doing lose experience which they must have in order to become intelligent workers. In their zeal, the knowledge of many things looks unimportant to them. They skim over the surface, and do not go deep into the mine of truth, thus by a slow and painstaking process gaining an experience that will enable them to be of special help to others."—"Counsels to Teachers," p. 476.
Evaluating Educational Procedure
Nursing schools of America have, perhaps, the only system of education that has existed in recent years without the help and guidance of some voluntary accrediting association to evaluate their program in the light of their objectives. Much time at the convention was given to the discussion of the plans and purposes of the committee on accrediting of the National League of Nursing Education. This group of educators had just completed a preliminary survey of fifty nursing schools in connection with this voluntary accrediting program. The system of organization of the school and the administration of the various departments in which students are expected to learn good nursing service—rather than isolated details—will determine the eligibility of approved nursing schools.
As we listened to Miss Clara Quereau, secretary of the accrediting committee, speak on the purpose, the program, and the product of nursing schools, we were reminded again that the most important individual in every institution is the patient. It is the task of nurses, with the cooperation of the faculties and boards of institutions maintaining schools for the preparation of nurses, to plan a nursing service which will ensure an environment for students where honest, intelligent, professional service is given to every patient. The patients of the future who will be cared for by the product which we turn out will then be assured similar efficient service.
Many times we were made conscious of the importance of an objective study of the fundamental principles in Christian education—to ascertain if in practice our own educational program for students of nursing is one which accomplishes the aim adopted by this denomination for the product of its schools. This aim, developed by Seventh-day Adventist nursing educators as the outgrowth of their philosophy of Christian education, reads as follows:
"To prepare Christian young men and women as professional nurses so that they will be able physically, mentally, and spiritually to bring themselves into right relationship with new and changing conditions, and who will be able to 'think and do,' and in so thinking and so doing, aid mentally, physically, and spiritually the individual, the group, or the community they serve."
As we analyze this aim in the light of the practice in our institutions maintaining schools, we realize, as do nursing educators of the world, that we have often come far short in achieving our ideals. However, it is conceded by all who are acquainted with the possibilities of our institutions and our program, that we have a situation in Seventh-day Adventist nursing schools most favorable to the accomplishment of our stated objectives.
Careful study of our aim in the light of present trends only illuminates the depth of meaning and the importance of the application of the principles of Christian education. These fundamental principles need no defense when compared with the best practices in the educational world of today.
