Please, Nurse!: A Student Nurse in the 1950s
£7.50£8.50 (-12%)
Joan Lock’s warm and nostalgic account of her three years of training as a young student nurse in the early 1950s. Perfect for fans of CALL THE MIDWIFE.
When Joan Lock began her formal training as a young nurse in the 1950s, she was unprepared for the strict discipline and long hours which were to follow and quickly realised she was no Florence Nightingale. Her honest and humorous account of the next three years reveals her most intimate experiences of being a nurse: from dealing with temperamental surgeons to fighting off flirtatious patients.
Labelled a trouble-maker, Joan and her friends tested their strict Sisters’ patience as they climbed through windows, slept through lectures and broke every thermometer that passed through their hands. But through it all, Joan found herself touched by the people she met and their heart-warming stories.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Orion (7 Nov. 2013) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 160 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 140912813X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1409128137 |
| Dimensions | 12.8 x 1.4 x 19.6 cm |
by Babs
Ok
by Jill
Not a bad read, made a change to read about someone who didn’t feel the ‘good old days’ of nursing were all that good and became disenchanted with nursing. Nice to have nostalgia from a different point of view for a change
by Fiona Tower
I was a student nurse in the 1960’s and this book brought back a lot of memories for me. The workload, being terrified of the ward sister being but two memories. An enjoyable read for nurses!
by Rachael.E.Daly
The book is a brief insight to nurse training in the 50’s,some humour but mostly descriptive-in the epilogue it is apparent that over 60 years later the same things occur in nursing-quite ironic really how the same problems are still prominent today,a brief book easy read but unable to grow attached to the main character(author)
by maureen Diane Galvani
A very interesting book, comparing my life as a nurse in the sixties
by M Warwick West Sussex
Took me back to the days when nursing training meant learning everything from scratch and was very hands on. Living in the student quarters you were ruled by Home Sister who kept a very close eye on all student nurses. Any misdeamnor was reported to Matron. Those were the days.
by R. Rose
This is a difficult book to rate. Coming from a nursing background and understanding nursing history, a lot of what Joan relates isn’t untrue, but I can’t help feeling that too much negative is emphasised. Given that she eventually didn’t see nursing as her career, it might be, that in some way influences the tone of the book (it’s also interesting to note that whilst she praises a subsequent uniform service she served in, she didn’t stay in that either).
I still enjoyed the book, as an example of nursing in the 50’s, but I wouldn’t rate it as highly as others that are available from that era.
by Helen Taylor
Chose 4 stars as not read it yet, but being a nurse and one who trained in the 70s I rather think I will still be able to connect quite well with it.