Professional Nurse

Even though America’s first nursing schools were not established until 1873, about ten years after the civil war, nurse training had been discussed earlier. As one physician put it “No hospital, civilian or military…, could be well-managed without “a corps of female nurses.” (Rosenburg, 1) Yet, there was pros and cons of these types of programs, not only for the women who were a part of it, but also for the physicians at the hospital. Young woman was given a chance to work at a respectable career. However, these young women were usually middle class white women who’s family could afford to pay for the training. This also made it harder for colored women to get accepted in these training schools. Because of these “The less well-educated and well-bred, were consigned after graduation to private duty, their better prepared sisters advanced into administrative and supervisory positions “ The training programs benefited the hospital with unpaid services from nursing students. These nursing students were working a minimum of sixty to eighty hours a week, (Rosenberg, 6). Many physicians had mixed feeling about nurses. Many did not like the idea of nurses …show more content…
Nursing has always been seen as a female career. “The qualities of a good nurse are vigilance, discretion, submissiveness and gentleness; and these are her special qualities, and only women have these qualities” ( Rosenburg, 2). At the time, it was seen obvious that women were better suited to be a nurse than men. “Women would bring warmth and reassurance to the patient as it brought cleanliness and order to the ward” (Rosenburg, 2). For these reasons, there was no opportunity for men in the nursing field. Another constraint would be the ideology of nurses being subordinate to physicians. Nurses worked long hours of labor, but it was worked that required no further intellectual