Making Good on Private Duty
Lounsbery, Harriet Camp
English
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MAKING GOOD ON PRIVATE DUTY
MAKING GOOD ON PRIVATE DUTY
PRACTICAL HINTS TO GRADUATE NURSES
BY
HARRIET CAMP LOUNSBERY, R.N.
PRESIDENT WEST VIRGINIA STATE NURSES' ASSOCIATION SANITARY SCHOOL
INSPECTOR FOR CHARLESTON INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
"Not to be ministered unto, but to minister"
PREFACE
Though technic is constantly changing, methods improving, and the
teaching in our schools grows better and more comprehensive, the
old problems in private work are ever to be faced, and still the
young sister in our nursing world needs to be counselled, guided
and helped. It is for these young private duty nurses that this
book has been written.
For six years I went up and down one of our large cities doing
private nursing, and I can remember, as if it were but yesterday,
the curious little sinking of the heart I used to feel, as I
mounted the steps of a house where there was a new patient needing
my care. "Would I do everything right?" "Could I please the
patient and the friends?" "Would the doctor be satisfied with my
efforts?" "How would I feel when I was leaving?" "Encouraged or
hopeless?" "Happy or sad?" A strange house looks so forbidding,
"would this one ever look friendly?" There is time, while walking
up the steps, for these and many more such thoughts to crowd into
the nurse's mind. Once in the presence of the patient, however,
all this quickly changes, and action puts all wondering and doubt
to flight.
The "hints" here given are the fruit of my own experience and that
of the graduates of the school of which I was the superintendent.
Many long talks we had, when they felt the need of coming back to
their hospital home for advice and comfort. It is an earnest wish
to help the young graduate over the intricate paths that the
inexperienced nurse must often tread that has led me to revise
some early contributions [Footnote: Printed by permission of the
_Trained Nurse_.] to the _Trained Nurse_ and write a few
new ones, which have within the past year appeared in the
_American Journal of Nursing_.
In the chapter "Hints to the Obstetrical Nurse," there is little
or nothing that is commonly taught in the class-room.
All of that is so well done, repetition here would be tiresome.
All the asepsis is familiar to every graduate. She knows how to
sterilize any and every thing, but sometimes she does not know the
best way to wash and dry the baby's little shirts or knitted
shawls. Sometimes she will not realize that if the layette cannot
be purchased at a store, old table linen makes the best diapers
for the newborn baby, and that his pillowcase should not have
embroidery in the center.
I wish in this part to give the nurse such hints that she may be
able to help any woman who wishes to prepare for her confinement.
I have been asked so many times to tell a young expectant mother
just _what_ to get, that I have made for convenience as full
a list as is necessary for any baby or mother, with some hints as
to the washing of the baby. The rest it is expected every nurse
who graduates from a training-school would know. The table for
calculating an expectant confinement was cut from a medical paper
and given me by a physician some years ago. He did not know who
wrote it, nor do I, but he always used it, and I have found it
most accurate.
The recipes I have given are, I know, reliable, having all been
tested many times. Most of the articles of food every nurse has
probably prepared, but exact proportions have a dreadful way of
slipping out of one's memory. Whether it is a pint of milk or a
quart that must be mixed with two eggs for a custard might not
seem much of a problem to a housekeeper, but to a nurse who has
perhaps not made a custard for a year it might carry many
difficulties.
I have tried to help in this most important part of a nurse's
duty, and not only as to the food served the patient, but the
_manner_ of serving it, which last is truly to a sick person
of as much importance as the food itself. The few leaves I have
left blank are for such additional recipes as every nurse will
gather as she goes from house to house. Any cook will be glad to
give some hints as to how she does this or that, and no nurse
should be too proud to learn from the cook, or anybody else. I
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