Loretta C Ford - Hall of Fame Inductee

From Democrat & Chronicle:

When Loretta C. Ford was a pediatric public health nurse in the 1960s, she was often the sole medical practitioner available in rural areas near Boulder, Colo.

It prompted her to co-develop the nurse practitioner model at the University of Colorado in 1965.

In 1972, when the University of Rochester department established its School of Nursing, Ford — the school's founding dean — further changed the way nurses are trained by pioneering and implementing the unification model, an expanded combination of education, practice and research.

There are now more than 140,000 nurse practitioners in the United States today, and about 400 nurse practitioners at UR Medical Center's Strong Memorial Hospital.

On Saturday, Ford will be one of 11 women inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls.

Women in Wartime

From the Star Tribune:

Sorry, but to address the disconnect between what nurses do in a war zone and life on the front lines, this story must be told. It comes from Lynn Bower, an Army nurse in the emergency room in Long Binh, South Vietnam, in 1971. She needed to cut away a soldier's uniform to treat his wounds. Struggling, "I went to grab his belt at the waist and when I pulled ... he came apart at the waist. He just opened up."

Bower's story is on page 43 of "Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Vietnam" by Kim Heikkila, a new book published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. It is perhaps the most traumatic story amid the next hundred or so pages, but it provides a necessary underpinning to the accounts from 14 other nurses who served with little public notice during the Vietnam War.

The story explains, for instance, Kay Bauer's barely stifled snort at the suggestion that nurses knew little of the front lines. "There is no such thing as a front line," said Bauer, who now lives in Coon Rapids. "The war is everywhere."

Penny Feiwel - International Brigade in Spain

From the Independent:

Penny Feiwel was the last of the British women who served as volunteers on the side of the Spanish Republic during the civil war of 1936-39.

She was one of about 75 women from Britain who joined the International Brigades following the military coup launched by Francisco Franco and other generals with backing from Hitler and Mussolini. Like Feiwel, known in Spain by her maiden name of Phelps, most of them were nurses and worked in makeshift frontline hospitals in conditions of great hardship and danger. Phelps herself suffered serious injuries in a bombing raid that put an end to her service in Spain.

In 1992 she published her memoir, English Penny, under the pen-name Penny Fyvel. In 2009, she and a small group of surviving International Brigade veterans attended a ceremony at the Spanish embassy in London to be awarded Spanish citizenship. Ambassador Carles Casajuana told them: "Your efforts were not in vain. Your ideals are part of the foundations of our democracy in Spain today."

Edmonton Revolutionary: Roberta MacAdams

From the Edmonton Journal:

The Edmonton Public School district announced Friday that it's looking for names for two new schools, one being built in Summer-side-Ellerslie in south Edmonton, the other in the Hamptons-Grange areas of west Edmonton.

Not earth-shattering news, perhaps. But for me, it offers an ideal opportunity to correct a historic injustice, to celebrate the life and contributions of an unsung Edmonton revolutionary: Roberta MacAdams

So why don't we know MacAdams's name? In part, it's because she retired from politics in 1921, after one term. At 40, she married, raised a family, excused herself from public life. She was never one of the Famous Five, who fought the Persons Case. Unlike Nellie McClung or Emily Murphy, she never wrote a book. She was never flamboyant or controversial or ideologically partisan -- just smart, brave, funny, independent and utterly competent.

Lucy Anne Ward (1856 - 1935)

Founder of Outback Maternity Home

Lucy was born six years after her parents first arrived in Australia from England. She became a milliner and operated a shop in North Adelaide, South Australia. Aged 22yo Lucy married Henry Ward. She left city life and travelled by horse and buggy to Willachra - 400km away. She and her husband had to clear the land, fence it and build their house - times were hard so they both took extra work wherever they could.

For the birth of Lucy's first daughter Lucy Evelyn (1880) there was probably no doctor and only assistance from her mother-in-law. She gave birth to another daughter (1882) who died (1885). She adopted her baby niece after the death of its mother but it later died aged 5yo - Lucy was aged 33yo. She had no more children of her own but adopted two more babies.

When relatives in the Hawker district decided to leave, Lucy and Henry bought the house. Lucy was not a trained nurse, but she acquired considerable practical knowledge through her own experiences and in the homes of other women. Lucy began to take in women far from any kind of help. With the difficulties of travel, many of these women from outlying areas often needed to stay for several weeks, and often brought their other young children with them. Since the ability to pay was never an issue, finances were not easy. Lucy cooked, cleaned, carted water, washed, and supplied milk and butter from her own dairy.

Soon the demand became greater than the house could accommodate, and so Henry built extra rooms, and "the Gables", as the house became known, was registered as a Lying-in Home (1909) under the State Children Act (1895). When a severe influenza epidemic struck (1910), Lucy set up tents to accommodate the many local people who fell ill and sought her help.

Three years after the opening of the Hawker Hospital (1928), as the Gables had become, 72yo Lucy recorded her last patient. Over 30 years, she helped deliver between 400-500 babies.

Lucy Osborn (1835 - 1891)

Lucy Osborn was the daughter of an Egyptologist. She was born in London, and as a young woman was said to be well educated and the "mistress of several languages". Lucy's main interest was in nursing. Against her family's wishes, Lucy attended the Florence Nightingale Training School attached to St Thomas' Hospital (1866), serving in both the men's and women's surgical, medical and accident wards.

When Henry Parkes, New South Wales politician (pre-Federation), was concerned about the state of the Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary, he appealed for help to Florence Nightingale for trained nurses. Lucy was sent out as Lady Superintendant of the Infirmary and was accompanied by 5 other trained nurses (1868). Lucy won Parkes' trust completely and threw herself into the almost impossible task of cleaning up the crumbling, foul smelling and vermin infested Infirmary. Lucy met with opposition from doctors and the Board, and was often lonely and dispiritid, but she stuck to her task. Lucy was continually obstructed by the surgeons and personally attacked in the Parliament (1868-1870).

A royal commission (1873) on public charities condemned the Sydney Infirmary, accusing the management committee of neglect and interfering in the duties of the nurses - Lucy was vindicated and the commission praised her work toward the improvement in the standards of nursing. So after six years, she had partially succeeded in her task and improvements were slowly coming about (1874).

Lucy retired from nursing (1878) and four years later (1880) the Infirmary's name was changed to the Sydney Hospital - Lucy had achieved her objectives. She returned to London, England, where she died (1891).

Historic Hospital Admission Records Project

From BBC News:

A fascinating and rare set of hospital records dating from Victorian times has been put online.

The records tell the stories of poor, sick children who were admitted to Glasgow Hospital for Sick Children from 1883 to 1903.

It is part of the Historic Hospital Admission Records Project being run by Kingston University in London.

The records give an insight into the common diseases and conditions of Victorian times.

Very few records from children's hospitals have survived from Victorian times.

Only two more sets are known to exist in the whole of Britain: for Edinburgh and Aberdeen hospitals.

Historians at Kingston University hope to digitise these remaining records in future.

Sister Elizabeth Kenny

Nurse & Battler Against Polio (1880-1952)

Elizabeth Kenny was born in Warialda, New South Wales, Australia, the daughter of an Irish farmer. She spent her childhood on the Darling Downs. Elizabeth had little education and there is no record of any formal training or of her registration as a nurse.

Elizabeth Kenny was a self appointed nurse (c.1910), working from the family home as Nobby on the Darling Downs, and riding on horseback to give her services without pay to anyone who called. She used hot cloth formentations on the advice of Aeneas McDonnell, a Toowoomba surgeon, to treat symptomatically puzzling new cases (c.1911) diagnosed by him telegraphically as infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis - polio). The patients recovered.

During WW1, using a letter from McDonnell as evidence of her nursing experience, Elizabeth Kenny enlisted and was appointed staff nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service, serving on troopships bringing home the wounded. She invented and patented a stretcher for the transporting of the wounded. She was promoted to Sister (1917), a title she used for the rest of her life.

Elizabeth Kenny established (1932) a backyard clinic at Townsville to treat long-term polio victims and cerebal palsy patients with hot baths, forments, passive movements, the discarding of braces and calipers and the encouragement of active moments. Doctors and massuers ridiculed her, considering her explanations of the lesions at the site of the paralysis to be bizzare. Thus began a long controversy at the time when there was no vaccination for polio. The strong-willed Kenny, with an obsessional belief in her theory and methods, was opposed by a conservative medical profession whom she mercilessly slated and who considered her recommendation to discard immobilisation to be criminal.

In the USA, however, Eliabeth Kenny's methods became widely accepted and the Sister Kenny Institute was built in Minneapolis. Other clinics were established in her name and Elizabeth Kenny, who remained unmarried, was eulogised in a full-length feature film in the USA. The American Congress (1950) gave her the rare honour of free access to American without entry formalities.

But depsite this success, Elizabeth Kenny remained in bitter controversy, partly because of her intolerance of opposition, and returned to Australia several times with little acclaim. Although Elizabeth Kenny's view of the pathology of polio were generally not accepted it was agreed that she stimulated much fresh thinking on the subject.

Elizabeth Kenny developed Parkinsons Disease (1952), and retired and died in Toowoomba (1952). Her book "My Battle and Victory" was published posthumously (1955).

Eileen Driscoll

From the Telegraph:

Eileen Driscoll, 90, was part of a team of Women's Royal Air Force who treated injured servicemen while they were being flown home from the front line.

The group - dubbed The Flying Nightingales - risked their own lives to help evacuate more than 100,000 wounded soldiers from the battlefields of Europe.

Despite their bravery, the nurses were paid the equivalent of less than 3p per day and were not eligible for medals because they held no official rank.

Last year seven of the surviving The Flying Nightingales were presented with achievement awards by the Duchess of Cornwall at a ceremony in London.

But Eileen, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was overlooked by officials - so her daughter Diane Owen stepped in and arranged for her to be honoured.

Now Eileen has finally received her Lifetime Achievement Award by the Ministry of Defence.