Editorʼs Miscellany

Abstract

before the Mary¬ land State Nurses' Association: " You have to consider exactly how to proceed to secure the State Examining Board. I noticed in several of the States the law was almost imperilled by efforts to secure the presence of physicians upon these Examining Boards. Now I am quite sure that it it is not the function of the physician to examine nurses. They had something to say in the training of the nurses; the nurse should not go forth without having come under the guidance of the physician; but your pro¬ fession is a skilled profession "which requires special knowledge, and a special knowledge that is possessed by the trained nurse and not by the physician. Akin as the professions of medicine and of nursing are, they are still distinct professions, and there is no necessity, in my opinion, and there are certain disadvantages, in the requirement that physicians should be members of the Examining Board. Most of these laws provide that the Examining Board shall consist of persons chosen, or at least nominated, by the State association, and that seems to me probably the wisest method. " These two features, then, are the ones which insure that the registered nurse has the requisite training and has the requisite knowledge. They insure that she has been graduated from a recognized training-school, one with the proper standards as regards the period of study and practical training. The law further provides that after the nurse has given evidence that she possesses the preliminary training she must pass an examination, not by her own trainingschool, where conditions come in that do not absolutely insure the necessary qualifications, but before a separate and distinct Examining Board. These are the essential features, as I understand it, of the law-the existence in the first place of a State association of nurses, in the second place a provision in the law for a suitable preliminary training, and, in the third place, the passing of the examination of a Board of Examiners who have not of necessity been the candi¬ date's own teachers.