When the Board of Managers of Lane Hospital was organized in October 1894, several months prior to the opening of the Hospital for patients on January 2nd, it was obvious to the Members that well-trained nurses were indispensable to its proper operation. They also rapidly learned that there were no such nurses in San Francisco. As a temporary expedient, when the hospital opened, they hired practical nurses; that is, women with some prior on-the-job experience. To these women Lane Hospital offered a three-month probationary appointment with-out salary. If performance was satisfactory, they were then paid $10 per month for the remainder of a two-year period. The position of Head Nurse was the most difficult to fill. The terms of employment were a three-month probationary appointment without salary and, if satisfactory, $ 35-40 per month for the remainder of two years. Attrition among these practical nurses was very high and proved to be a vexing deterrent to the efficient operation of the new hospital. This continued to be the case until, within a remarkably few years, the Lane Hospital Training School for Nurses began to provide nurses whose personal and professional attributes, and devoted service, are still recalled with admiration and affection. by the Nursing School's alumnae. [20]
The Lane Hospital Training School for Nurses was inaugurated by Mrs. Lane in 1895 soon after the opening of the hospital, and was but one of her many significant contributions to the farsighted and generous designs of her husband. The program might justly have been named the Pauline C. Lane School of Nursing. Possibly events moved too fast for such recognition to be accorded her, or perhaps she refused the honor as she had when Dr. Lane wished to dedicate the hospital to her.
From the School's inception, its students and later its graduates provided nursing services that earned the hospital a reputation for proficient and compassionate patient care.
Thirty-one students enrolled in the first class of the Training School in 1895. It was desired, but not required, that entering students present a high school diploma. All successful applicants were women. Country girls were preferred for they were thought to have greater endurance. The first five months of the two-year training program were considered a probationary period. The students, wearing uniforms designed by Mrs. Lane, worked in the hospital seven days a week and were on duty at least twelve hours a day. If the patient load was light, they were occasionally allowed a half day off. Two weeks' vacation were given during the two year training period. Student nurses were provided lodging, meals and laundry in the hospital, and there was no tuition.
Miss Clara DeForest, graduate of the Class of 1900 and able Historian of the Nursing School, recalled the rigorous working conditions: " I have heard nurses say, 'What a stupid group of women in the past, to work such long hours. They were just exploited by the hospital.' Not so! Everyone had longer hours in those days. I think they were a brave and courageous group of women, and we stand on their shoulders, reaching up and out to the future of nursing." [21]
During the early years of the School there were no trained nurses to serve as nursing instructors. Senior students held Head Nurse positions and were responsible for teaching nursing skills to younger students. For example, Miss Maude Copeland, who came to California for her health and entered the Lane Nursing School as a student in 1895, was at once assigned the position of Acting Head Nurse by virtue of her having previously spent several months at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Doctors from the Faculty gave an intensive course of lectures on a wide range of medical subjects. The sessions were held in the evenings when the nursing students were so tired and sleepy from long hours on duty that they often found it difficult to stay awake.
Miss Copeland, given credit for her prior nursing experience at the MGH, was awarded a diploma in 1896 after only one year in training, making her the first graduate of the Lane Hospital Training School. During the same year, twenty-seven students were admitted but the class was decreased due to the resignation of eighteen students.
The first graduation exercises of the School took place in 1897 on the evening of the 17th of March. The ceremony was held in the Hospital Library which had been carefully planned and beautifully furnished under the direction of Mrs. Lane. The Graduating Class of six young women, and their friends and families, heard an address by the President of the Board of Managers, Dr. L. C. Lane, who spoke with feeling of the honor of the nurses' calling and of the duties and responsibilities assumed by one entering the profession.
Mrs. Lane then presented to each member of the Graduating Class a pin of her design consisting of a gold shield, bearing in its center a Red Cross and above, in white enamel, the name of Lane Hospital Training School. As she presented each pin, henceforth the official "Badge of the Training School," she made a few happy and personal remarks appropriate to the character of the graduate. These touching tributes to the sincerity and zeal with which the young women had entered upon their life's work were printed in the Commencement Program for their future encouragement and reflection.
In concluding the Commencement exercises, Mrs. Lane gave the following charge to the Class [22]
| Lane Hospital has now conferred upon you the symbol of the Order of your chosen calling - the Shield and the Cross - the one to protect you in any danger to which your fortunes may call you; the other a key to open to you scenes secret and sacred as is the Holy of Holiest. May no danger, bodily, spiritual or moral, ever be stronger than your shield; may no cross more painful than this be yours; may you never have to carry within your breasts a cross you may not wear upon them. |
As an indication of how rapidly graduates of the Nursing School were pressed into leadership roles, we can mention that Mrs. Fanny Caroline Liesy was, directly upon her graduation in the Class of 1897, appointed Superintendent of Nurses and Principal of the Training School at a salary of $ 40 per months. Later in the year, diplomas were awarded to two additional nurses bringing the total graduates of the Nursing School in 1897 to eight.
1897 was also a banner year for the Hospital on grounds other than Nursing, as President Lane pointed out in his Annual Report for the year to the Directors of the College: [23]
Lane Hospital has had a successful career during 1897; the number of patients treated was an increase upon that of 1896. Its income has been sufficient for its maintenance and the professional service rendered the patients has been of a high order. The Hospital is acquiring celebrity in the treatment of affections of the ear and eye and grave surgical diseases. The work done by Drs.. Barkan, Cushing and Rixford merit laudable mention. The instrumental outfit of both the College and Hospital has received important additions during the year: an Xray apparatus has been introduced into the hospital, and several important appliances have been purchased for the chair of physiology. The fiscal condition of the College is satisfactory. (Xrays were discovered by Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen of Würzburg, Germany, while experimenting with a Crookes tube in 1895. Only two years later Lane Hospital purchased Xray equipment for clinical use.) [24] |
In 1899 the nurses were moved from Lane Hospital to a "Nurses Home" in an old and leaky building on Clay street adjacent to the hospital. This was the site where Stanford Hospital was later constructed. [25]
The Board of Managers of the Hospital decided that on 1 January 1902 the Nurses' Training Course would be extended to three years, and that the third year's service would be compensated for at the rate of $10 per month.
By 1903 there was an average daily census of ninety-three patients in Lane Hospital; there were from fifty to sixty student nurses involved in their care; and the number of interns had been increased to four. [26] [27]
In 1908 the teaching staff of the School of Nursing included the following four graduate nurses:
Superintendent of Nurses
Assistant Superintendent
of Nurses
Head Nurse of the Operating Department
Head Nurse of the Obstetrics Department
The positions of Night Supervisor and Head Nurse on the patient care units continued to be filled by student nurses. As the years passed, the rigorous work-schedule of the nurses was gradually eased and the teaching staff increased.
In 1908 some much needed enlargements and improvements in Lane Hospital were made, increasing its capacity from one hundred to one hundred and eighty beds. Also new laboratories were established for clinical pathology and for photography and actinography.
In 1909 there were twenty nurses in the graduating class and, reflecting new relations between Stanford and the School of Medicine, David Starr Jordan, President of the University, gave the Nursing Commencement Address in Lane Hall and Dean Gibbons conferred the diplomas. [28]
In 1912 the average daily occupancy of the one hundred eighty hospital beds was one hundred and twenty patients for an occupancy rate of 67 %. Charge per day for a Ward was $ 2,50. Private beds ranged from $ 3.50 to $ 8.00 per day. Eighty student nurses were matriculated in the Training School and diplomas were awarded to 11 graduates. [29] [30]
Nursing School Joins Stanford. On 1 July 1912, Cooper Medical College, Lane Hospital and Lane Nursing School, became an integral part of Stanford University. The hospital was thereafter a University Hospital under control of the Clinical Committee of the Medical Department of Stanford University. Members of the first Clinical Committee were the following: [31]
Clinical Committee
Chairman: Dr. Ray Lyman
Wilbur, Executive Head of the Medical Department
Secretary: Dr. George B.
Somers, Physician Superintendent of Lane Hospital
Member: Dr. William Ophüls,
Professor of Pathology and Secretary of the Faculty
Member: Dr. Stanley Stillman,
Professor of Surgery
Member: Dr. Alfred B. Spalding, Professor of Obstetrics
and Gynecology
As the new Physician Superintendent of Lane Hospital, recently appointed by the Clinical Committee, Dr. Somers made a comprehensive First Annual Report to that Committee for the year ending 30 June 1912. His Report included an outline of the program of the Lane Hospital Training School for Nurses.
Nursing care in Lane Hospital, from its opening in 1895 to its incorporation into the University in 1912, was provided almost entirely by the students and graduates of its Nursing School, and to the full satisfaction of patients and physicians. This extraordinary record was due to the commitment and endless toil of the young women who graduated from the school during that period. In recognition of their outstanding service Somers listed all their names in his First Annual Report. The number of graduates annually was derived from that list and summarized in the following table: [32]
Graduates of the Nurses Training School
1896 - 01 1904 - 00
1897 - 08 1905 - 11
1898 - 10 1906 - 18
1899 - 14 1907 - 11
1900 - 06 1908 - 16
1901 - 15 1909 - 20
1902 - 13 1910 - 18
1903 - 29 1911 - 16
1912 - 11
__________________________________
Total Graduates, 1896-1912 = 217
The Dr. Somers concluded his memorandum transmitting the First Annual Report of Lane Hospital to the Clinical Committee with the following significant recommendation: [33]
| One of the greatest needs of Lane Hospital is a new home for nurses. The number of nurses in training has rapidly grown and has now reached a size where the present quarters are inadequate. They give three years of the best part of their lives to institutional work and when trained, become a valuable asset to any community to which they may offer their services. The training of nurses should receive generous support from the public. There is no more worthy philanthropy than the encouragement of this work. Lane Hospital urgently needs a modern fireproof building large enough to accommodate one hundred nurses. |
In 1912 the name of the Nursing School was changed to Stanford School for Nurses, later to Stanford School of Nursing, and finally to Stanford University School of Nursing. [34]
On 24 June 1916 work began on the foundation of a new facility to be known as Stanford Hospital. In due course we shall return to the subject of this new construction and will at that point further trace the development of the School of Nursing.
Until then we will revert to 1895 and resume our generally chronological account of the main events related to Cooper Medical College.