Army Digest: The Many Worlds of the Army Nurse - 1963-12

The Modern Army Nurse - December 1963 Army Digest

THE MODERN ARMY NURSE

Helpmate to Health —On the All-Service Team

Back Cover (At Right): Service with the human touch is provided by Army Nurse who brings holiday cheer to hospitalised dependents.

A Career Within a Career
The Many Worlds Of the Army Nurse

MILLIE COOPER—pert, attentive young Army nurse stationed at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas—is only one of some three thousand Army nurses on duty worldwide.

Like her associates in uniform, she finds that her career offers unparalleled opportunities for professional self-development.

In fact and deed, hers is a career—Nursing—within a career—Army service. Each day brings new challenges, for there is no lack of diversity in the roles to be fulfilled in the day of an Army nurse.Wherever the Army is deployed, there you will find enacted the many roles of the modern Army Nurse:

The Many Worlds of an Army Nurse

OPERATION NIGHTINGALE. To meet the increased needs for additional Army nurses, Operation Nightingale—a Department of the Army program to stimulate interest in and assistance for Army nurse recruitment—has been in operation since last spring.

The shortage was critically pointed up during the Cuban crisis, when Army hospitals were severely affected as many of their nurses were ordered to report to field units.

With the support of Army commanders, Operation Nightingale seeks to increase public understanding and awareness of the opportunities for service in the Army Nurse Corps.

Special projects include tours of Army medical facilities by student and graduate nurses. Success of the campaign already is being felt, but more nurses still are needed, Lieutenant General Leonard D. Heaton, The Army Surgeon General, points out.

The Many Worlds of an Army Nurse - Learning

One of those roles is in the field, accompanying troops on maneuvers, preparing to accompany them to combat if that should come. Another is selecting medicine for a patient. Still another is discussing her work with Col. Edythe Turner, head nurse, while a fourth is assisting a surgeon.

LEARNING AND... TRAINING

She and the other nurses in the Army, like these on this page, continue their professional studies to keep abreast of advances in medicine and in their own specialties.

They study effects of anesthesia on the brain; they conduct research; they consult medical journals in libraries.

Their duties are many and varied, ranging from administering to a wounded man, to checking on on infant's formula, to teaching a new mother infant care in her home.

SERVICE TO THE PATIENT

Some fellow workers are male nurses, trained like all others to provide many services—checking on a patient's recovery; keeping records; changing bandages and many others.

STANDBY IN SURGERY

A dramatic part of Millie's working day is in the operating room. When the surgeon requests an instrument, the nurse must know exactly what is needed.

ON THE JOB ... IN THE FIELD

When troops take to the field during exercises, the nurse lives the life of the soldier. Above, Millie huddles against the rain with elements of the Fourth U. S. Army at Camp Bullis, Texas. Below, a nurse and aidman administer to a soldier injured during a field exercise near Heidelberg.

ON- POST OFF-POST OVERSEAS

All work and no play would make any nurse a dull person so like soldiers everywhere they find time for recreation and sightseeing. Here two Army nurses view the historic sights of ancient Heidelberg.

The Many Worlds of the Army Nurse

Millie and her fellow nurses also enjoy a midnight snack, take part in sports, work on hobbies—and above all, they have dates.

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