Windows in Time 2010

Windows in Time A Newsletter from The Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry Volume 18, Issue 1, 2010 May 2010 The Center for Nursing Providing Access to Care: An Historical Perspective Historical Inquiry Staff Arlene Keeling PhD, RN Today, as in the past, many United States citizens do not have full access to Director the medical and nursing care they need. Indeed, despite Congress’s recent [email protected] passage of the Health Care Reform Act, 32 million Americans remain Barbara Brodie PhD, RN, FAAN Associate Director without sufficient insurance and access to health care – a fact that will [email protected] likely be a reality until the full effects of the bill are realized in 2014.1 This Mary E. Gibson PhD, RN fact is no more evident than in the recent participation of several hundred Assistant Director [email protected] Americans in a Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinic held in a Los Angeles John Kirchgessner PhD, RN, PNP Sports Arena, a scene described by John Rogers of the Associate Press as Assistant Director one “that could have been playing out in a third world country” in which [email protected] people “began arriving before dawn on a cold misty morning. all of MSM Linda Hanson 2 Administrative Assistant them seeking the same thing: free medical care.” [email protected] The scene is reminiscent of that in the streets of New York City where Maureen Spokes MLS th Archivist Nurse Lillian Wald started a “first aid room” at the turn of the 20 century [email protected] to provide care for poverty stricken immigrants on the Lower East Side. Center Associates There, the Henry Street visiting nurses cared for “fresh cuts and bumps, Anne Z. Cockerham PhD, RN, CNM, old wounds, eczema, burns, local infections, small accidents and WHNP conjunctivitis. ., cleansing wounds, applying eye ointments, treating [email protected] burns with salves and bandages, and attending patients with minor Barbara L. Maling PhD, RN [email protected] illnesses.”3 According to historian Karen Buhler-Wilkerson, “the Lisa Zerull PhD, RN, FCN immigrants poured through the doors: mothers would stop by with [email protected] children, working people would come by in the evening” – all to receive Editorial Staff nursing services John Kirchgessner, Editor “unencumbered by red Linda Hanson, Assistant Editor tape or formality.”4 Center Volunteers Aurelie Knapik The LA clinic scene is also Sarah Craig White similar to that outside of a Brodie Fellows nursing clinic in the 1930s 2010-2012 in Appalachia where Christine Hallett PhD, RN hundreds of impoverished 2009-2011 citizens of Leslie County Deborah A. Sampson PhD, RN sought well baby checkups, Contact Information immunizations, and Center Phone: (434) 924-0083 treatment for cuts and [email protected] bruises, gun- shot wounds, www.nursing.virginia.edu/cnhi Public health nurses making a house call. CNHI heart failure, and infectious Charlottesville/Albemarle Public Health Nursing collection. Windows in Time May 2010 Page 2 (Continued from page 1) diseases. There, nurses from the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), established by Mary Breckinridge in 1925, offered access to care to thousands of Scot-Irish, English, and Welsh descendants in one of the poorest and most inaccessible areas of the United States — an area The Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry where treacherous mountain terrain coupled with a lack of roads and (CNHI), established at bridges made access to physicians difficult even for those who could the University of afford their fees. Virginia in 1991 to In both of these historical cases nurses not only ran clinics but also support historical visited patients in their homes: in the city, crossing roof-tops by fire scholarship in nursing, is dedicated escapes to cut down on stair climbing in the tenements; in Appalachia, to the preservation fording streams on horseback to reach the mountain cabins. Later in and study of nursing the century public health nurses (like those pictured in Albemarle history in the United County, Virginia) also visited patients in their homes, traveling down States. The history of dirt roads by jeep or car to reach those in rural communities. nursing in the South is especiallyThe Center emphasized for Nursing Delivering care in remote areas of the country or in the less desirable asHistorical a focus of Inquiry inquiry. sections of urban cities is in fact what public health and visiting nurses (CNHI), established at The goals of the Center (with physician supervision, or at the very least with a set of standing the University of include the collection of Virginia in 1991 to orders) have been doing for the past century. Although the care they materials, the promo- support historical have provided varied from place to place and from one decade to the tion of scholarship, and scholarship in nursing, next as new treatments became available and new laws controlling the the dissemination of is dedicated to the practice of nursing were enacted, nurses have consistently been on the preservationhistorical research and study front lines. Much can be learned from these nurses — particularly offindings. nursing history. The development of related to cultural sensitivity and the withholding of judgment about advanced clinical health choices — as nurses work collaboratively with other members nursing practice, and of the health care team in RAM clinics where they are providing “the the clinical specialty kind of health care Lillian Wald began preaching and practicing in organizations that 1893 . the kind the people of this country are still crying for. .”5 represent the various practices, is a major focus of the Center. The goals of the Center include the collection of 1 Karen Tumulty, “Making history: House Passes Health Care Reform,” (March materials, the promo- 23, 2010). http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1973989,00.html tion of scholarship, and 4/29/2010. the dissemination of 2 John Rogers, “Health arena: LA clinic begins giving free care to thousands,” historical research http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php? findings. id=1240284&lang=eng_news&cate_i 4/29/2010. 3 Karen Buhler-Wilkerson, No Place Like Home: A History of Nursing and Home Care in the United States, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001): 109. 4 IBID. 47 5 No author, “Editorial,” American Journal of Nursing, (1971): 53. As cited in Arlene Keeling, Nursing and the Privilege of Prescription, 1893-2000. (Ohio State University Press, 2007): 126 Windows in Time May 2010 Page 3 Center News 2010 Barbara Brodie 2010 Nursing History Forums Nursing History Fellow Dr. Christine McLeod Hall Room #5044 Hallett, PhD, 12:00-1:00 PM RN, is the 2010 recipient of the September 7, 2010 Barbara Brodie Nursing His- Giving Birth on the Trail: The Nursing Care of Mormon Pioneers from 1846-1866. tory Fellow- ship. Emily C. Evans, RN, MSN Dr. Hallett is a Reader in Nursing History and is the Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery at October , 2010 the University of Manchester, UK. Her research is "Sir, can you help me out?": entitled Healers, Heroines and Harpies: Literary Nurses An analysis of EMIC program letters, 1943-1947. of the First World War. Her project builds on an exist- ing body of research which examined the profes- Nena Patterson, RN, MSN sional and volunteer work of nurses during the First U.Va. SON PhD candidate World War. Her previous book, Containing Trauma: Nursing Instructor, James Madison University Nursing Work in the First World War (Manchester University Press, 2009) examined the meaning nurses gave to their work. Her current research will examine the ways in which nine nurses represented November 16, 2010 themselves and their work through literature. The Healers, heroines and harpies: ‘literary nurses’ identified by the project made influ- Literary nurses of the First World War ential contributions to the way in which nursing was viewed by three subsequent generations. Christine Hallet, PhD, RN The anticipated result of her research will be a schol- Director of the UK Centre for the arly, yet accessible, text which will present and cri- History of Nursing, and Midwifery, tique the works of these nine nurses. The book will Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, highlight the significance of these nurses’ contribu- University of Manchester tions to the healing work of the wartime medical services and their contribution to our understanding of that most extraordinary and destructive of modern wars, the First World War. Windows in Time May 2010 Page 4 Center News Congratulations and Welcome the Lutheran Deaconesses made to health care in to Dr. Barbara L. Maling Baltimore during the late-nineteenth and early- & Dr. Lisa M. Zerull twentieth centuries. Lisa is the Academic Liaison and Program Manager (Faith Based Initiatives) for We are pleased to announce that Drs. Barbara Winchester Medical Center/Valley Health, Adjunct Maling and Lisa Zerull have joined the Center as Clinical Faculty at Shenandoah University, and Center Associates. Faith Community Nurse (on sabbatical) for Grace Barbara Maling, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Winchester, VA. PhD, RN, We are delighted to welcome Barbara and Lisa, and defended her we look forward to the unique scholarship they will dissertation bring to the Center. “Black Southern Nursing Care Center Renovation Update Providers in Vir- The CNHI renovations continue apace. We ginia during the anticipate moving into the renovated space in late American Civil summer. Please stay tuned for details. War, 1861- 1865”in Decem- Staff Presentations: ber 2009. Her Cockerham, A.Z. “’Bethlehem’s Stable’: Seeking the research used historiographic methods to examine Right Place for Birth at the Catholic Maternity Insti- the nursing care provided by black southern tute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1944-1969.” Paper pre- women to Confederate and Union soldiers fighting sented at the American Association for the History in the Civil War.

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