Mom

Sometimes, you don’t fully understand even the people closest to you until you experience them, and their lives, in a new and richly personal way. That’s the case for me with my Mom – today is my late Mother’s birthday, and she would have been 100 years old.  May is Nurse’s Month, and she was an accomplished and talented nurse, something I appreciate more every year and especially now, during the month that celebrates Mother’s Day, her birthday and the career she chose. Or in her case, the career she was forced to choose. Let me explain…

“…Nevertheless, She Persisted.”

Last week, we spoke of Florence Nightingale, who became a nurse against her family’s wishes.  So did my mother.  Actually, she became a nurse against HER wishes – what she actually wanted to become was a doctor. Specifically, she wished to serve as a physician in the Army to fight Hitler.  But in 1939, women could not go to medical school.  In fact, I have learned that when she started in nursing, if a physician got into an elevator, the nurses had to get off.  Talk about a gender divide. So, Mom ran away from home and trained as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital in Brooklyn, New York.  As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, this is particularly meaningful to me – she was working during what turned out to be a turning point in the recognition of mental health and the need for advanced training in that field. During the second World War, the awareness of mental health needs for people, soldiers in particular, reached a new high.  As a result, the National Mental Health Act of 1946 provided Federal support for research and training of mental health professionals. Psychiatric nursing programs were established, and my mother received a full scholarship to Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Grappling with Diseases Unheard of Today, In Situations Where No One Wanted to Venture

Her first job was as a public health nurse in a poverty-stricken area of DC.  Today, Foggy Bottom is a very expensive neighborhood, but in those days, she helped the poor.  She taught hygiene in populations who dealt with vermin, measles, polio, diphtheria, TB and other diseases that we don’t see anymore.  Well equipped with this intensive experience, she went on to work in the DC Tuberculosis Sanitarium. 

Her work as a psychiatrically trained nurse helped her develop therapeutic milieus for the long-term patients there.  She developed programs for treatment of alcoholism.  She became expert in Geriatrics.  And, her team also pioneered wound-care programs.  Fun fact: I was the only 7-year old who knew what a “decubitus ulcer” was. Many of her patients suffered from bedsores, and pressure beds were incredibly expensive. She and her team developed an innovative approach: they used inexpensive inflatable camping air mattresses, and instead of air filled them with water. Patients who didn’t have bedsores didn’t develop them, and the ones who had them began to heal. She did a paper and several presentations on this technique – one of many programs she and her team created to develop the RNs in her hospital. In fact, she specialized in the training of PCTs, and she precepted RN students for Georgetown University and Prince Georges Community College. 

Balancing (and Influencing) Career and Family

Being a mother and having a family didn’t slow Mom down at all. In fact, between her second and third children, she went back to school and received her Master’s Degree in Nursing Education. Mom was a woman who, when met with challenges, responded creatively and rather dramatically to overcome those challenges, achieving remarkable things (like obtaining advanced degrees) and creating innovative solutions (like developing state-of-the-art treatment approaches and RN development programs) that few others, and almost no women, were doing. She acted as a trailblazer, and her model and impact upon others and me is something I am continuing to learn about and appreciate.

In fact, I believe I really didn’t know who she was until I became a nurse. I launched a mid-life career in nursing: though Mom died the week before I took the N-CLEX exam, she lived just long enough to know I graduated and had joined her career.  Finally, I understood in a much richer and more intricate way who my mother was, what she did and what she really cared about.

Even though Mother’s Day was two weeks ago, I feel so connected to Mom everyday through nursing and precepting new APRNs (and the occasional PA student).  I feel grateful for all the mothers and grandmothers that created this field, and made it possible for us to bring caring and presence to the sick and suffering every day.  Every day is Mother’s Day thanks to them, and today, Mom, this one is for you.