Nursing in Mission Stations

Abstract

The conditions which will confront a nurse in a hospital in such a country as China are not just those in which she has received her training. Yet from many points of view they are such as to attract rather than to repel. It is the conditions that really make the work the opportunity that it is, especially in such an opening as is now pre¬ sented in the University Medical School in Canton, the foreign work of the Christian Association of the University of Pennsylvania. The work has just been started. One physician is now on the field, Ur. J. C. McCracken, 1901, University of Pennsylvania. He is purchasing land on which it is expected to erect a permanent dispensary and hos¬ pital, for which the money is in hand. At present he is at work learn¬ ing the language and meeting from twenty-five to fifty patients daily in the small temporary dispensary. The first year's work of the nurse would be that of learning the language and helping in the dispensary a few hours each day. Later on, with the coming of the hospital, her duties would be that of a graduate nurse, and as proper candidates presented themselves, she would train several assistants, acting as head nurse to them. As the hospital grows, she would train as large a staff as would be required and act as superintendent. She would need patience and ability to modify methods so as to suit existing conditions. The set rules of an American Hospital could not be imposed unchanged upon a hospital in China. But principles are the same and will in every case point to the best methods. The work is small in its begin¬ nings, and discouragements must be expected at first, but persistent effort will bring a realization of the greatness of the opportunity. There are still other attractions: chief of which, and inclusive of most, is the community of fifteen to twenty cultivated and enjoyable Americans, situated at the Canton Christian College, whose campus joins that of the Medical School. Canton also is a large city with a foreign settle¬ ment. The following quotations from a letter written by Dr. A. H. Woods while in China, and who worked in Canton for about seven years, may be of interest to any prospective candidate: