National Nurses Week 2007 theme is Nursing:
A Profession and a Passion
Often described as an art and a science, nursing is a profession that embraces dedicated people with varied interests, strengths and passions because of the many opportunities the profession offers. As nurses, we work in emergency rooms, school based clinics, and homeless shelters, to name a few. We have many roles from staff nurse to educator to nurse practitioner and nurse researcher and serve all of them with passion for the profession and with a strong commitment to patient safety.
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Background
National Nurses Week is celebrated annually from May 6, also known as National Nurses Day, through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.

Victoria General Hospital School of Nursing

Documents Only
The School's Beginnings
The Nursing Program

The School's Beginnings
The Victoria General Hospital was first established in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1867. The hospital acquired a bad reputation and was thought to provide poor medical care. In 1887 the province assumed control of the hospital and attempted to transform the hospital's image as a place of poor medical care to a place of active and successful medicine. To assist in this transformation a nursing school was established in 1890, the first of its kind in Nova Scotia, with the objective of providing the hospital with a disciplined nursing staff who would adhere to standards of professionalism and cleanliness. First Yearly Report of the Training School for Nurses, ca. 1892 Annual Report 1907-1908, By-Laws and Regulations

The Nursing Program
The Victoria General Hospital School of Nursing offered a two year nursing program, which relied heavily on practical experience in the wards with head nurses and senior students demonstrating techniques to the junior nurses. The student nurses were taught uniform procedures for everything from making beds and caring for sick rooms, to preparing patients for the operating room and disinfecting utensils and were a major contributor to the hospital's nursing labour.
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Nursing crisis takes a turn for the worse
Hospital seeks to sell or close its Island school, reflecting wider problem
Staten Island Advance - Monday, October 23, 2006
Nurses are in short supply and greatly needed by hospitals, clinics and nursing homes to take care of Staten Island's and the state's aging population. Yet training schools are rejecting an increasing number of qualified candidates, often because of faculty shortages.

Some 67 percent of the state's nursing schools rejected qualified applicants last year, as compared to 57 percent of the schools doing so in 2004, and 49 percent in 2003, according to the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the State University of New York at Albany.
Recently, Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers voiced its intent to sell or close its School of Nursing in Clifton, which has operated for more than 30 years and currently instructs some 115 students annually.
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IWWG.com (International Women's Writing Guild)
The Guild disseminates its support and spirit year-round by encouraging the creation of Kitchen Tables, regional clusters and neighborhood networking. Currently there are close to 150 regional contacts in the U.S. and overseas. Judi Beach (Maine) is the IWWG Regional Representative Coordinator, as is Elizabeth Julia Stoumen (IWWG, New York City).
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