What was Nursing School Like in 1964?
Heavily starched uniforms … blue and white pinstriped dresses … long, white-bibbed aprons … navy blue wool capes … white nylons. Sound uncomfortable? That was the nursing uniform at Memorial Hospital 50 years ago. Uniforms have changed since then, but the level of quality care hasn’t.
Thirty of the 37 remaining class members from Memorial Hospital School of Nursing’s class of 1964 will come together June 21 to reminisce about life and nursing as they celebrate their 50th anniversary as honored guests of the nursing alumnae.
Memorial’s nursing school was a 36-month diploma program affiliated with Indiana University. Training included rotation experiences in medical, surgical, obstetrics, pediatrics, tuberculosis and psychiatric training. Workdays for the student nurses were over 12 hours, with floor duty from 7 to 11 a.m., followed by didactic educational classes and back to the units for duty from 4 to 7 p.m.
Nurses remember shaking down mercury thermometers until their wrists ached, using glass syringes for injections, hanging heavy glass IV bottles and sandbagging the heads of cataract patients. Following graduation, Linda Keeler put these practices to use as an Army nurse in a MASH unit in Vietnam, and Nancy Harvey on a medical mission to China.
Over the past 50 years the Class of 1964 has helped orchestrate dramatic changes in the role of nursing, from physician handmaidens to technically savvy managers of patient-centered care. Their service has been marked by more than 1,100 cumulative years in the profession of nursing. These nurses may have lost their caps, but they gained a wealth of life experience, and made a world of difference in the lives of people across the world.
