Anna Louise Tittman Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Anna Tittman
I
A. I know, and of course, we older nurses, we 've never liked some of the
thine that they do today. For instance the thing I spoke pf a while ago,
the patient having one nurse do everything for her. In o* day, if me
nurse answers ilnd sees that it ts Room 10 that's ringing, *etll tell you.
She'll say that mmber ten wants you. Or if you're busy in another mom,
she my stop long @no& to find out what she needs [the mtient], maybe
help out there. But it was that way; you just owned your patient, as it
were. 1
q. Do you think our hospitals today are forgetting that *y they're in
business is to cure a patknt?
A. Oh, I don't think so.
Q. Sometimes as patients, you almost feel as if you're ixposing on them
for being there. From what you've told m, it sounds likq it was a little
rnore compassionate .
A. Well, that ' s what we nurses, alder nurses, have. thougIIt for a lag' time.
But long as they were keeping on in;tneir nursing care ofipatients in the
hospital, they did pretty much what the hospital establiskd as regulations.
I haven't been mund hospitals much. I don't go to visftt patients unless
it 's sombcxdy who's lonesome. If they say, "Well, why don% you corn and
see m.I1 Well, I don't go now; I'm not fit to go, I man* go in there
hobbling with a cane. No, I think the patient needs-she goes to get well
and not to have company coming all the ti=. At nap tin~q, if she gets to
sleep, and is not a good sleeper, of course, they give heq sorething now.
They do that in nursing hones a great deal; give them sowthing to keep them
quiet so they won't get up and prowl amund. I prowl if I want to; always
have. Well, I'm somy I don't remember so much about it. Letts @ on to
the postgraduate courses, shall we?
Okay. We ' ve got you coming out of nurses training in 1 1906.
No, I came out in 19--yes, I cam out in 1906, yes. @re, Septerrber.
Now what happened next?
What happened next? I did prfvate duty nursing.
How did* you get into that?
Well, we had a good f'riend in Pk. Richard Ibdds who h+d a drugstore on
the corner of Fifth and Monroe, the northwest comer. That was the meting
place for mny people who were going to spend the evenin@; together or SOEthing
of that sort-go places together-and that's where Ehey ca@t the
streetcar. Mr. Dodds agreed to have the private duty nur$es register so
when people needed a nurse, a
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paduate registered nurse, $hey would get it
either k.om the hospital or fk, m kPm. You'd report to him when you carre in
off af a case and then he woul give yowl name out and yowr telephone nmber,
as you report in. And if you d any special things that you elmwted--
for instance, one might say, can1 t go out of town, thgn he would be careful
about that.
Now he hew that I cared.
I1d+worked ln his fdly too.
I took care of