Portrait of Oldfoolrn As a Young Man

A few recent emails inquiring about my dearth of recent posts with concerns about my health really warmed the cockles of my arteriosclerotic laden heart. Yep...I've had a few recent issues; bilateral knee replacements with complications, cataracts, and an overwhelming (almost) klebsiella sepsis. I would have never survived as a devout weaver of more foolishness without the caring expertise of so many outstanding whippersnapperns! I was deeply touched by their caring and skill. My nursing world was so far removed from theirs that I cloaked my identity as an Oldfoolrn! I lied and told them I worked in a produce warehouse which was partly true.

So I ventured down to my basement junk pile nursing archives to search for an inspiration to write something. Sometimes not writing is as important as writing, but lo and behold I stumbled across this image of me posing in all my foolhardy grace with my esteemed classmates well over 50 years ago. This was a time when 3 year hospital based nursing education (if you could call it that!) ruled the roost.

These archaic programs promulgated some very bizarre notions and customs where consciousness was outsourced to the will of the school. Diploma nursing schools were bastions of laissesz-faire zeitgeist. It might be foolish to describe a Chicago based nursing school using French and German words, but this terminology fits the culture like a glove.

By way of further and complete obfuscation explanation, we were expected to be totally non-judgmental when caring for patients while being subjected to judgments that were akin to dogmas established by religious fanatics. We were prohibited from ever carrying money to reinforce dependency on the school despite living in a building that had marble clad walls, terrazzo floors, and a chandelier in the auditorium that rivaled the one in the opera house. The generosity of well heeled donors extended only to durable structures not people.

We were expected to exhibit an instinctive kindness even when working all hours of the day and night. Our first clinical rotation was during a hot Chicago summer on a detox medical ward. I will never forget the hodge-podge of smells (paraldehyde, emesis, sweat, and Kayexalate induced stools.) The intrepid instructors believed if a student could survive in this environment, they would be able to limp to completion of the program 3,000 hours and 30 months later. We started with 78 probies and graduated 23 nurses. I think the graduates envied the folks who had the sense to bail out!

It's interesting to note from the class picture that only those with the grim sour puss expressions (self included) managed to graduate. My friend, Rhonda, the smiling, ever pleasant young lady on my right left after 6 weeks to escape the mind numbing, soul shattering world of a vintage Chicago training hospital!