p. 18 | Nurses' Postgraduate Course by L. A. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 4, 1913

Nurses' Postgraduate Course

By L. A. H.

THE unusual advantages offered in connection with the postgraduate course for nurses given by the Washington Foreign Mission Seminary should appeal to many of our nurses who wish further preparation for the work to which they have been called. We can well believe that it was in the providence of God, and by his blessing, that this means of advanced education and special training was made possible. Those who have already realized its blessings have many words of praise and gratitude in its behalf.

Being especially intended for the graduate nurse, the course makes first provision for advanced instruction and experience in practical medical missionary lines. Being under the direction of those who are well acquainted with the requirements for effective missionary work in various fields and whose whole purpose is the preparation of well-qualified workers, this course is made to include

such subjects as are the most essential. Ample facilities for thorough work are offered. Special consideration is given to the individual needs of workers preparing for special fields.

Among the advantages offered students in this course may be mentioned the practical work that is given in connection with the Washington Sanitarium City Dispensary. This institution is located in a part of the city that affords the best kind of material for clinical study and personal experience. Many cases come to the dispensary, and the surrounding territory offers a large field for house-to-house work. The range of diseases treated is a wide one; and, as the work is comparatively new, the possibilities of its development are largely to be realized. While the dispensary has not been long established, its work has proved a most positive success from its very beginning. Those who are acquainted with its progress feel that marked blessing has attended it. For some time serious consideration has been given to the question of enlarging the dispensary quarters on account of the growth of its work. Those taking the postgraduate course are given three months' experience at the dispensary under the direction and supervision of qualified workers. This experience alone is considered a most valuable one by those securing it.

The city of Washington is now being recognized as first in the opportunities offered students and scholars for preparatory, collegiate, and postgraduate study, for research, and for broad culture. The fact that the city is the seat of government, the home of its various departments, and the storehouse of the researches of the government since its foundation, has naturally given impetus to the growth of schools, colleges, scientific and artistic institutions, and societies for research. Under the government there are, for instance, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum, with their wealth of material relating to natural history, ethnology, etc. Then there is the Library of Congress, without its equal in this country, its contents available to all who would use them. The statistical and scientific bureaus of the various departments with their equipment for study and research are also available to the student. The Army Medical Museum, the Hygienic Laboratory, the Bureau of Standards, the Botanical and Zoological Gardens, and other facilities offered by the government, form a field of opportunity not available elsewhere. The gathering of many scientific societies and the holding of national and international congresses and conventions still further enlarge the field of valuable instruction. It was a rare opportunity, for instance, for those in Washington to attend the sessions of the great International Congress on Hygiene and Demography held here last year, the first time it had ever been held in the United States.

The discriminating student can find profitable use for spare time in taking advantage of the many facilities offered in Washington for special study. The teachers of the Foreign Mission Seminary are always glad to cooperate, by counsel and assistance, to obtain the very best and the most out of these opportunities. The Seminary affords each year a course of lectures for entertainment and edification, given by the best talent obtainable from our own leading speakers and from other prominent lecturers.

The regular educational advantages offered by the Seminary may be utilized by the postgraduate as occasion may demand and circumstances will permit. Where earlier educational opportunities have been withheld or neglected, the student may be able to make up studies that are lacking. If one has already been engaged in field work and has learned by experience what is most needed for a better preparation, he can avail himself of the opportunity of special studies.

Conditions attending the usual nurses' training course are sometimes such as not to permit of the most thorough course in systematic Bible study and in practical methods of spiritual work, consequently many of our nurses feel unprepared to engage in labor calling for experience in this direction. Others, who have had some training, may wish to add to it. Both these classes will find help in the classes in Bible and Bible workers' training. Actual experience in holding Bible readings is given under the supervision of experienced workers.

It is not necessary to speak of the general benefits of a postgraduate course. Many of our nurses are already interested in securing such wherever possible. But we may well consider the advantage of taking such work under conditions and influences that will make for the highest good in every respect. Spending six months or a year in special study and training in an institution where every influence is toward higher living, where the instructors are God-fearing men and women, where the associate students are Christian workers, where only the truth is taught and error is fought, where there is an absence of those demoralizing worldly influences that cannot help affecting most persons, certainly presents a situation that our workers must readily appreciate.

One who is desirous of being better fitted for work in God's cause must make careful selection of the elements in his training. Only under unusual conditions can we consistently choose surroundings abounding in detrimental influences and greatly lacking in the helpful. With the course offered by our own Foreign Mission Seminary, covering so fully the needs in medical subjects and experience, and at the same time affording the best of spiritual conditions, our nurses can feel quite free in planning on postgraduate work. Write to M. E. Kern, Takoma Park, D. C., for full information regarding the course.

L. A. H.