Excerpt from The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review, Vol. 48
Following that they may also find the housekeeper in direct communication with the city hall, or Albany, or Washington.
In Handbook 13 concerning the registration of nurses we read: "The board of examiners of nurses appointed pursuant to laws of 1903, chapter 293, is continued. The New York State Nurses Association at each annual meeting shall nominate for examiners two of their number who have had not less than five years" experience in their profession. Upon the expiration of the term of office of any examiner now in office the Regents of the University of the State of New York shall from the candidates so nominated fill the vacancy for a term of five years and until his or her successor is chosen. An unexpired term of an examiner caused by death, resignation or otherwise shall be filled by the regents in the same manner as an original appointment is made. The said regents, with the advice of the board of examiners above provided for, shall make rules for the examination of nurses, etc."
The regents, with the advice of these ladies, shall make rules, regulations, etc. In all of this there is no place for a representative of the medical profession or of hospital boards.
It is true that the gentlemen who compose the board of regents are capable of studying and mastering the nursing question. They have handled larger problems than this, but we have never heard that Hon. Whitelaw Reid, M.A., LL.D., the distinguished diplomat and statesman; or Hon. St. Clair McKelway, LL.D., editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle; or the Hon. William Nottingham, M.A., LL.D., of Syracuse; or Hon. Eugene A. Philbin, LL.B., LL.D, and the other distinguished honorables have ever given much attention to these matters. Dr. Albert Vander Veer is on the board of regents, but he seems to have kept very quiet on nursing matters, perhaps fearing the consequences if he should arouse the R.N"s.
The political sagacity of the New York State Nurses Association and its leaders, many of whom nursed so long ago that they may have forgotten how, is certainly a thing to be admired, but the unfairness of the law is deplorable.
The rapid evolution of registration in this State during the few brief years of its history is exceedingly suggestive, and demands careful and serious attention. At first, aside from the narrowness and unfairness just referred to, the law and its interpretation seemed fairly just and reasonable. It required of pupils applying for admission a certificate of graduation from a grammar school or its equivalent.
The fact that the hospital fully met the requirements of the regents, together with their word of honor, was considered a sufficient guarantee that the hospital authorities could be trusted to determine "equivalents" and the general fitness of applicants under the law.
However, a little later (to quote from Handbook 13), "After January 1, 1906, all registered training schools for nurses must require of pupils applying for admission the completion of a one-year high-school course subsequent to an eight-year grammar-school course, or the equivalent." Thus a year in the high school was added to the eight-year grammar school or the equivalent.
The determination of "equivalent" to the grammar course and one year in high school seems also to have been left to the good judgment of the hospital authorities, and this method gave a fair degree of satisfaction to the hospitals, which considered that they were the best judges of "equivalents" and fitness.
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