SISTER ANGELA PLUME
St Twitters - Our Patron Saint
Welcome to St Twitters – everyone’s very own virtual Twitter Hospital.
Angela Plume SRN was a sister in one of England's leading provincial hospitals in the 1980s, and was a controversial and authoritative commentator on all aspects of nursing. Her letters appeared on a regular basis in the "Nursing Times" magazine, where she expounded on topics ranging from traditional nurses' uniforms to men in the nursing profession. St Twitters is indebted to her tradition and example.
Let us remember her exhortation that nurses learnt in the past
"Carry that Bedpan to Glory"
Sister Angela Plume SRN (Lond.)
Ward Sister at St Hilda's
A Leading Provincial Hospital
Sister Angela Plume SRN (Lond.)
Ward Sister at St Hilda's
A Leading Provincial Hospital
This volume of her words of wisdom has been compiled especially for nurses and nursing students.
Sister Plumes - Words of Wisdom (1988)
"The Welfare of our Patients is at stake."
"'Plan for the worst', is a safe maxim."
"The fiasco that was the Nursing Process was clear proof that we don't need to know about the persons life outside the Hospital. There can be no possible benefit in delving into the various foibles and fascinations of the individual. Treat everybody the same and one cannot be accused of injustice."
"I have followed with increasing horror, the debate on Nurse Training. It seems to me that there is a fashion for taking established and well tried systems and tinkering with them - to their detriment."
Following admission, and recovering from his initial diffidence, the patient will start to request information about his condition. Stand none of this!
The miracles of modern science have ensured that nowadays pain is largely kept within the limits of endurance and seldom increases beyond the level we may describe as character-building.
Interference from friends and family can be highly detrimental to the operation of the Ward.
If a systematic approach to medical and nursing care is to be maintained, the random and counter-productive interferences from from relatives must be strictly controlled.
We are resolute in our resistance to the unseemly interest in the patient's background.
To my mind, there is far too much energy and soul searching wasted on fruitless investigations into the dischargee's home circumstances.
In dealing with difficult relatives, as with difficult patients, a firm approach is absolutely essential. Believe me, attempts to reason with them will only be interpreted as weakness.
Ambulance-men, tend to clump about in heavy boots, are quite impertinent in their modes of address, and often attempt to smoke roll-up cigarettes in clinical areas. But they can move objects faster than Pickfords.
"But the Schools of Nursing are equally culpable. It should come as no surprise that Educationalists are in favour of Project 2000. My own School of Nursing boasts more Communists than the BBC."
"A major set back (for Nurses) came with the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. Give people anything for nothing and they will cease to appreciate it. The NHS Act opened the floodgates to malingerers who had, until 1948, been held in check by decent Victorian values. Now any Tom, Dick or Harriet can march into a hospital, demanding free medical and nursing attention."
"What of this supposed crisis in Nurse Education? No such crisis exists, in my mind. For instance, the so called wastage rate amongst our young girls is quite clearly a method of natural selection or, as I am fond of saying, a means by which the sickly twig may be rent from the healthy bough."
"I am encouraged, however, by reports from some of my students, that many of our Nurse Tutors are standing up for tradition, and continue to base all their teaching on anecdotal instruction."
"It is well to ensure that the nursing staff have all patients on their beds before the start of the Ward Round, so all toileting must really be out of the way by 9.00 am."
"Only last month I had the misfortune to have a 'Research Nurse' billeted on me. I discovered her attempting to hold subversive meetings with my students in the clinical room.When I intervened she was already passing out 'reading materials' which advanced the heresy that pressure area care may be undertaken without recourse to oxygen or egg white."
"The Welfare of our Patients is at stake."
"'Plan for the worst', is a safe maxim."
"The fiasco that was the Nursing Process was clear proof that we don't need to know about the persons life outside the Hospital. There can be no possible benefit in delving into the various foibles and fascinations of the individual. Treat everybody the same and one cannot be accused of injustice."
"I have followed with increasing horror, the debate on Nurse Training. It seems to me that there is a fashion for taking established and well tried systems and tinkering with them - to their detriment."
Following admission, and recovering from his initial diffidence, the patient will start to request information about his condition. Stand none of this!
The miracles of modern science have ensured that nowadays pain is largely kept within the limits of endurance and seldom increases beyond the level we may describe as character-building.
Interference from friends and family can be highly detrimental to the operation of the Ward.
If a systematic approach to medical and nursing care is to be maintained, the random and counter-productive interferences from from relatives must be strictly controlled.
We are resolute in our resistance to the unseemly interest in the patient's background.
To my mind, there is far too much energy and soul searching wasted on fruitless investigations into the dischargee's home circumstances.
In dealing with difficult relatives, as with difficult patients, a firm approach is absolutely essential. Believe me, attempts to reason with them will only be interpreted as weakness.
Ambulance-men, tend to clump about in heavy boots, are quite impertinent in their modes of address, and often attempt to smoke roll-up cigarettes in clinical areas. But they can move objects faster than Pickfords.
"But the Schools of Nursing are equally culpable. It should come as no surprise that Educationalists are in favour of Project 2000. My own School of Nursing boasts more Communists than the BBC."
"A major set back (for Nurses) came with the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. Give people anything for nothing and they will cease to appreciate it. The NHS Act opened the floodgates to malingerers who had, until 1948, been held in check by decent Victorian values. Now any Tom, Dick or Harriet can march into a hospital, demanding free medical and nursing attention."
"What of this supposed crisis in Nurse Education? No such crisis exists, in my mind. For instance, the so called wastage rate amongst our young girls is quite clearly a method of natural selection or, as I am fond of saying, a means by which the sickly twig may be rent from the healthy bough."
"I am encouraged, however, by reports from some of my students, that many of our Nurse Tutors are standing up for tradition, and continue to base all their teaching on anecdotal instruction."
"It is well to ensure that the nursing staff have all patients on their beds before the start of the Ward Round, so all toileting must really be out of the way by 9.00 am."
"Only last month I had the misfortune to have a 'Research Nurse' billeted on me. I discovered her attempting to hold subversive meetings with my students in the clinical room.When I intervened she was already passing out 'reading materials' which advanced the heresy that pressure area care may be undertaken without recourse to oxygen or egg white."
"The management of my Hospital have decided - in their limited wisdom - to employ nurses from a commercial agency."
"Admission is a vital 1st contact & a good authoritarian attitude is vital lest disciplinary problems ensue later."
"Let me introduce myself, proudly, as a traditionalist. I'm a product of what is carpingly known as the 'Old School, & I embrace it."
"Admission is a vital 1st contact & a good authoritarian attitude is vital lest disciplinary problems ensue later."
"Let me introduce myself, proudly, as a traditionalist. I'm a product of what is carpingly known as the 'Old School, & I embrace it."
"A tidy Ward is an efficient Ward. Ensure a major portion of the day is dedicated to correcting the disarray that patients cause."
"Of all the periods in the Hospital Day, Visiting Time is one of the most pressured & least satisfactory for the busy Nurse."
"We all have good reason to regret the extension in visiting hours foisted on us by misguided theorists."
"If there is any adjustment to our system of Nurse Training, let it be an increased emphasis on the Nightingale Philosophy."
"As far as I am concerned, the sooner - and deeper - Project 2000 is buried the better."
Re P2K: "I had hoped that this latest hobby-horse die from the same flogging of its own supporters as the Nursing Process did."
"Nurse training is an ideal rounding off to a young woman's education, providing a smooth transition from childhood to motherhood."
"Men in Nursing! Does not the very phrase, this palpable contradiction in terms, strike you with its grotesquerie - and cry to heaven itself for correction."
"The invidious take over of the Nursing Profession by those of the male sex can no longer be borne."
"Speaking as an essentially practical nurse, I find endless discussions about nursing research impossible to bear in silence."
"Who - according to the trendy faddists & rabid left wing - is responsible for our patients? The Trade Unions!"
"Man does not live by bread alone. A message lost by on the editorial staff at Nursing Times & all other nutritional faddists."
"It was only a matter of time before the fickle attentions of the liberals & communists turned on the traditional diet of these islands."
"Even the densest introductory course nurses knows that sick people have poor appetites anyway."
"I have noted the damage that men have done to our profession. I propose that the RCN return to a strict policy of females only."
"I shall petition for proper nurses headgear, aprons & practical long skirts. I shall be relentless in my fight for lace cuffs"
"Nothing makes a Ward feel more of a slum than unmade beds & disorganised bed areas."
"A firm yet non-committal response is key to effective patient handling & rehearse a short series of stock answers."
"The current trend for presenting management as a mysterious psuedo-profession is folly. It is something we all do along with all else."
"When there is a Royal College of Managers, perhaps we shall start to worry. Forget this diversion & concentrate on our primary role."
"Miss Nightingale had no need for American text books, or audio/visual aids. she taught from experience, & my goodness they learnt!"
"We do our young girls a disservice with all this technology & psychology (best left to Drs), instead of concentrating on bottoms & bowels."
"After all, say the socialists say you cant expect the new style nurse to stand for Parliament, strike, or become a sociology professor, if she is surrounded by sick people."
"I blame the men.They joined the profession against the wishes of our own professional body, took power, and then decided that nursing wasn't really what they wanted to do."
"I have watched my profession pulled apart by educationalists & psuedointellectuals spouting quasi-marxism & perverting our girls,"
"If the 1000s of nonsensical research programmes were cancelled, we could afford to pay for more real nurses like me."
"It is obvious to me that planning meals for patients is a matter of instinct and common sense."
"The genuinely afflicted are always quiet & cooperative. You may expect some groaning from those who are in extremities of pain."
I became a nurse as I was assured that there would be plenty of handsome doctors who had good upbringings and were of sound financial means. I found to my horror lady doctors everywhere and not a husband for me anywhere. I have therefore devoted my life to order, tradition and making probationers cry. Modern Matron 2013.
ReplyDeleteWell said!
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