An Academic Nurse’s Tale: Triumphs, Tribulations, and Travels

By Pamela J. Brink RN PhD FAAN

Looking back, author Pamela J. Brink never really wanted to be a nurse, but when she was in high school, she couldn’t think of any other career for women she felt drawn to. She was expected to go to college, but she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. In An Academic Nurse’s Tale, Brink narrates her story, telling how her choice turned out to be a perfect one.

She began her nursing career in the 1950s, and it spanned the most turbulent times in nursing education in the United States. Brink documents the times, offering a glimpse of the remarkably interesting period in the development of education, research, theory, and skills. She also presents a look at the ever-changing aspects of academic nursing.

An Academic Nurse’s Tale gives firsthand insight into the versatility of a nursing career and describes the interesting, challenging, and rewarding aspects of the profession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665709095

Pamela J. Brink RN PhD FAAN

Pamela J. Brink, RN, PhD, FAAN, an academic nurse, taught nursing in universities in the United States and Canada. She is a founding member of the Council on Nursing and Anthropology, co-authored two research texts, published Transcultural Nursing, presented her research at national and international conferences, and published widely. Brink founded and edited the Western Journal of Nursing Research.

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Copyright © 2021 Pamela J. Brink, RN, PhD, FAAN.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-6657-0908-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0907-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0909-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021913290

Archway Publishing rev. date: 09/28/2021

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Becoming a Nurse in the ’50s

Decisions, Decisions

Living at St Vincent’s Hospital Nurses’ Residence

Murphy Memorial Hospital

Chapter 2: Being Exposed to Different Medical Specialties (1954–55)

Veterans with Psychiatric Issues

Working with Kids

Polio and Leprosy

Hollywood Isn’t All Glitter

Back at the Mount

Chapter 3: My First Jobs (1956–57)

Evening Charge Nurse, Saint John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, California

Office Nursing: Not the Right Job for Me

Chapter 4: Moving Around the Country (1957–69)

Moving to Washington, DC

Back to California to Work with Psychiatric Patients

Brentwood Veterans Administration Psychiatric Hospital

Moving to Cincinnati

Nursing at the University of Cincinnati Psychiatric Pavilion

Teaching at the University of Cincinnati School of Nursing

Moving to Boston

Learning to Be an Anthropologist

Trying My Wings in Kentucky

Research at Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, Nevada

Chapter 5: UCLA (1969–82)

My Bright Shining PhD

Teaching and Research

Assistant Dean of Student Affairs

The Nurse Practitioner Debate

Visiting Professor at the University of Colorado, Summer 1972

Chapter 6: University of Iowa (1982–88)

From Visiting Professor to Full Professor

Faculty Orientation

Being Searched

The Development Committee

The Successful Dieters Project

The Phone Call that Made Me Sit Down

Chapter 7: University of Alberta, Canada (1988–99)

Associate Dean for Nursing Research

Research Projects

University of Ghana

Teaching New Courses

Saint Stephen’s College

Meetings

Retirement

Chapter 8: Musings

Postscript

Works Cited

To all my teachers who have shared their

knowledge and wisdom throughout my life,

Even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time,

Thank you for your kindness and patience.

To all my students who listened to me as I

tried to share my knowledge with you,

You have no idea how much I appreciated you.

Students, colleagues, and friends, please forgive me if I have

not acknowledged you by name. You are not forgotten.

Preface

I haven’t written this memoir because I am a famous person, or a famous nurse. I have written this memoir because my nursing career spanned the most turbulent times in nursing education in the United States, and I wanted to add to the documentation of the times. I also hope to show how interesting, challenging, and rewarding nursing can be and encourage young people to seriously consider it as their profession.

I have no titillating tales to tell. No shocking revelations about my life as a nurse that would please a reader looking for dirt. I have no inside stories about famous nurses; I name no names. This isn’t a book about gossip.

You may have noticed that I sign my name Pamela J. Brink, RN, PhD, FAAN, whereas most of my colleagues sign their name with the PhD first and the RN at the end. Why the difference? If it weren’t for my RN, I would not have my PhD. So, I honor my licensure by giving it precedence.

Are my memories accurate? They are to the degree that they are my recollections of events and not newspaper reports. Memories are always colored by emotional responses to the event. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the memory. Others who have lived through these times with me might say, Oh, it didn’t happen that way! My response is always, Please write your own memoir. We need as many as we can get.

When I began my career in nursing, most nurses were unmarried; nursing was viewed more as a vocation than as a job. If a nursing student married while still in training, she was immediately dismissed. An employed nurse who married could lose her job. I suspect this attitude was a result of Florence Nightingale’s training with German nuns. Today, most nurses are married.

Lots of other things have changed as well. When I took my course in nursing arts at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Los Angeles, the emphasis was on comfort; all our skills were to make the patient as comfortable as possible. We learned to make beds without wrinkles to prevent bedsores. We learned to give bed baths because lying in bed all day made people sweaty, and a bath helped relieve that feeling of sweatiness. We learned to give back rubs that began at the shoulders and ended at the rump because lying in bed all day was extremely uncomfortable and these back rubs relieved the pressure and prevented bedsores.

In addition, as my friend Father Robert J. Kus, RN, PhD, reminds me, when we were nursing students, patients stayed in the hospital until they had recovered from their illness, injury, or surgery. Today we live with overnight or outpatient surgeries where patients go home to recover, or they are sent to rehabilitation facilities. Whether this is due to the secularization of hospitals from religious-run hospitals, I have no idea. It is far more likely that the shift came when business corporations started to buy hospitals for economic reasons rather than charitable ones. But it was a shift from care to cure.

Today, nurses are taught technological skills rather than comfort skills. This was brought home to me when I spent two weeks in a rehabilitation hospital after a knee replacement. Other than meals and physical therapy, I spent my days flat on my back in bed. Most of my interaction with the nursing staff was technological—pulse, blood pressure, medications—with the nurses’ interacting with their computers most of the time they were with me. I was never offered a back rub. My baths were supervised by an occupational therapist, not a nurse. Even when I was discharged home to home care, the nurses spent most of their time with me interacting with their computers. When I asked one of the nurses to supervise me as I wanted to take my first shower after coming home, she told me she was too busy and had to leave to see another patient. I did, however, get her to stay till I had finished my shower. These two health care agencies (the rehab hospital and the home care postop) were considered to be the best in the area.

Computers and the internet had not arrived until I was an associate professor in the late ’70s when I was still at UCLA. Prior to that time, we used the typewriter. Long-distance communication was by snail mail or telephone. We called our teachers by their titles: Doctor, Professor, Sister, Mr., Mrs., and Miss. We would not dare call our teachers by their first names as that would be considered disrespectful. By the time I taught in universities, I was addressed by my first name, never by either Doctor or Professor, titles I had earned.

My story includes the beginnings of baccalaureate nursing education in the United States—the movement from hospital-based nursing training, to college- and university-based nursing education.

I have written this memoir as an example of the versatility of a nursing career as well as an insider’s view of the changes in nursing over many decades. I deliberately chose to write a memoir rather than a history, although I hope I have added to the history of nursing during this time. Perhaps it will inspire a nursing student to try her wings and sample the many facets of nursing. Perhaps a student of nursing history will find some nuggets of information not easily found elsewhere. I hope my story is entertaining as well as informative.

I hope that after reading this book, you may consider nursing as a career.

Chapter 1

Becoming a Nurse

in the ’50s

I t was chilly as I stepped outside the nurses’ residence that morning. Once again, I wondered why I hadn’t bought the more attractive nurse’s cape instead of the bulky sweater I was wearing. It might have blocked the chill better. As I turned up the hill toward St Vincent’s Hospital, in Los Angeles, I wasn’t thinking about what a beautiful day it was or how fresh the breeze felt. I was just going to work.

Oh God! The smell! It hit me as it always did when I opened the door into the hospital. It was like having to walk through an invisible curtain, that smell. From the fresh outdoors to the smell that almost gagged me. Every morning I had to go through the smell, and I always wondered what I was doing there. I hated the smell and all it stood for.

I was a nursing student reporting for duty. I had decided to become a nurse because I didn’t want to be a schoolteacher like the rest of my family. My rebellion, I guess. But, oh how I didn’t want to be where I was. I hated nursing as much as I hated the hospital. It wasn’t anything like Cherry Ames. Or as I had imagined nursing to be. And that smell, every morning, reminded me of what I had gotten myself into. Where did I go that day? Which floor? It didn’t really matter; I had to overcome my instant revulsion and ask myself once again, Do you really want to be a nurse? The answer was always no.

Looking back, I never really wanted to be a nurse, but when I was in high school, I couldn’t think of any other career for women that I felt drawn to either. I knew I was expected to go to college, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was at sea. I wanted to become a nun, but I couldn’t decide which order I wanted to join. I felt obligated to the Maryknoll nuns because of Sister Patricia Marie,¹ but I had no real desire to be a missionary. I was drawn to the Benedictines, especially the Trappistines, ever since I read Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain. But I knew that nuns were bound by holy obedience and served where they were needed, not where their interests lay. I knew I could be assigned to elementary school teaching just as easily as nursing. So, I thought that if I had a degree in nursing, I would hardly be assigned to elementary school teaching. I could not bear the thought of spending nine months of the year with the same group of children, day after day, year after year. At least nursing provided variety—different people in the hospital every day.

The problem was, as it remains, that I am not a people person. I don’t interact easily and comfortably with people; even people I know well. I am much more of a loner. But what kind of a career is available for loners? Most careers require human interaction, and I felt enormously unqualified. Some of my classmates asked me, Why do you want to be a nurse when you don’t like people? I had no answer. I did not know myself. All I knew, or thought I knew, was that there would be little tedium, no daily hum drum of interacting with the same people day in and day out that I might not even like. A terrible way to decide on a career.

The one job that appealed to me