Let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head how can I provide for this right thing to be always done?
It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm.
The martyr sacrifices herself entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for she makes the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick.
No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'.
A nurse is to maintain the air within the room as fresh as the air without, without lowering the temperature.
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work.
Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.
To be 'in charge' is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself but to see that everyone else does so too.
The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work.
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.
