Wednesday, January 1, 2014

FORWARD FACING




Fay Hancock - Registered Nurse, North Carolina
On Call For Duty, US Army Nurse Corps
Harper's Bazaar November 1943
Photography: Kodachrome by Louise Dahl Wolfe




2 comments:

Shari D said...

I'm not sure what the captioning information has to do with this photograph. This is s photo of s woman in a U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps uniform, in front facing to the left. This is the outdoor or street wear only, winter uniform worn by student nurses in the U. S. Cadet Nurse Corp, a program which was sponsored by the government and run by the United States Public Health Service from 1943 through October of 1948, when the last sponsored classes graduated. The program was responsible for funding nursing education for qualifying students at qualified nursing schools during and just after the war years, at an advanced pace of 30 months as opposed to 36, and the last six months of training taking place either in the civilian hospitals where their nursing school was located, or in other government sponsored hospitals in rural or Indian Reservations, public health or visiting nurse programs, or Military or VA hospitals, to help keep nursing care from disappearing completely from all the civilian hospitals when an enormous percentage of graduate nursing staff left to join the Army and Navy nursing corps. The students in the Cadet Nurse Corps had all their school expenses covered, plus a small living stipend each month and in return provided up to 85% of all the nursing care received by the civilian population in hospitals during the period of their training as students. They were also obligated to work in government or military hospitals for a period of time after training and registration was complete.
Standing behind this woman, out of focus, is a Registered Nurse in all white, and facing her in conversation is a nursing student in the traditional student nurse uniform of blue and white with white cap.

Shari D said...

You're entirely welcome. I see now what this photo and the caption were apparently attempting to convey, based on your reply. And yes indeed, the posture, expression and photo composition this Cadet Nurse was captured in do show those very things.
I just wasn't sure at the time what one had to do with the other, since anyone still wearing her Cadet Nurse uniform was not yet finished with all her time in training, either classroom or final clinical training, or yet a Registered Nurse. Being Registered meant one was finished with and had graduated from school, and had taken the rigorous examinations required to achieve that status.
I hope she had a successful and fulfilling career as a nurse.