Making Good on Private Duty | Page 4

articles of luxury and beauty you will find in many of our city houses. Remember that these things belong to some one else, though you are for the present custodian, and think how provoked you would feel if some stranger should come to your home, and, even if she did nurse you back to health, she left many nicked plates, broken vases and handleless cups behind her. I think you would not want her to nurse you again.
I saw recently in an English magazine devoted to nursing, a very clever article on "Talk." The writer, a nurse, thought subjects were scarce. She says: "We must not talk to the patient about her own complaint, that would make her morbid; or about the doctor, for that would be gossip; or the hospital, for hospitals are full of horrors; or the other nurses, for that might lead to talking scandal; or about other patients, for that would be betrayal of confidence. Now what are you to talk about when a patient is well enough to talk, and your talking to her will not hurt her (but on this point be very sure before you air your eloquence)? It is indeed quite a question, and the nurse must often use all her ingenuity to keep the patient to the right subjects, for even patients, though they hold it so reprehensible in a nurse to talk gossip, do not disdain to serve up their neighbors occasionally to the nurse, with some very highly seasoned scandal sauce, and here the honor of the nurse must come into play; let her forget it if possible, as woe will betide the poor girl if in her next place she unwittingly lets out any of the secrets she has heard in these long talks. Try then to steer clear of the neighbors. If your patient be a cultivated person, and you yourself know anything about books, you have a never-failing topic. All the latest books, the famous books, the most entertaining books, and if you can read aloud and the patient likes to hear you, read to her, and it will do both good--only be sure not to tire her by reading too much at one time. Talk of interesting places you have visited and she will do the same, of pictures you have seen, and last, but not least, you can talk about clothes. Generally the first serious piece of business a convalescent concerns herself about is the purchase and making of some new clothes. She wants something new and fresh, and if you can give her any new ideas on the subject or tell her of any pretty materials you have seen in the shop windows, you will prove as entertaining as if you talked on any of the forbidden topics, and many times more useful."
I would like, in closing this chapter, to say a word as to reading the daily papers. If your patient is a woman, she will want to know just about what you, yourself, would be interested in, and this is very easy; but if your patient is a man, it is harder to know what he will want; politics, the money market, etc., which most women skip over. If then your patient is a man, commence on the first page and read slowly the headings of the news items, when one strikes him, as desirable to hear, he will tell you to read it; when you get through the news you may turn to the editorial page and do the same there. Unless you know your patient very well do not attempt to enlighten him as to the stock market quotations, for it is, I suppose, well nigh impossible for an ordinary woman to read them so that a man will understand her. He will probably laugh over your well meant endeavor, and ask you to "kindly let him look at the paper," when he will in a moment find out what you have been trying to say.

II
THE NURSE AND THE DOCTOR
I suppose no nurse goes through a training school without being duly impressed by all the doctors on the staff of lecturers that they, the doctors, are the generals of the campaign. She and her fellows are the aids, and that she will be kind enough to remember this fact, and not make suggestions to him, the doctor, or give him the fruits of her ripe experience of three years in a hospital, and more or less time, as may be, since she has graduated. But though this I think you all know, there are some points of your connections with the doctor which may not be quite so clear.
In the first place, then, remember that you are his aid, you are to help him in every way you can,