What is a Student Nurse?

Student nurses are to be found everywhere, underneath, on top of, running around, jumping over or slithering past patients’ beds. Doctors overlook them, mothers worry about them and patients love them.

A student nurse is courage under a cap, a smile in snowy white, strength in starched skirts, energy that is endless, the best of young womanhood, a modern Florence Nightingale. Just when she is gaining poise and prestige, she drops a glass, breaks a syringe or steps on a doctor’s foot.

A student nurse is a composite. She eats like a team of hungry interns and works like the whole nursing staff put together. She has the speed of a gazelle, the strength of an ox, the quickness of a cat and the endurance of a flagpole sitter. To the head nurse she has the stability of mush, the fleetness of a snail, the mentality of a mule and is held together by starch, adhesive tape and strained nerves. To an alumnus, she will never work as hard, carry more trays, make more beds or scrub on more cases than her predecessors.

A student nurse likes days off, boys her own age, the O.R., affiliations, certain doctors, pretty clothes, her roommate and Mom and Dad. She is not much on working 3-11, days off with classes, alarm clocks, getting up for roll call or eating corned beef every Tuesday.

A student nurse is a wonderful creature. You can criticize her but you can’t make her quit. Might as well admit it, whether you are a head nurse, doctor, alumnus or patient, she is your personal representatives of the hospital, your living symbol of faith and sympathetic care.

Author Unknown, 1963 Year Book