THE CHOICE OF PHYSICIAN AND NURSE.
Choice of Physician and Nurse of Real Consequence.—Choose
a Physician Whom You can Trust Implicitly.—A Cleanly
Man.—The Wife Should Make the Selection.—A Christian
Physician.—Choice of Nurse.—Wife most Capable of Making
Choice.—Advice of the Physician Desirable.—She Should be
Pleasing to the Wife.—Cleanliness.—Gentleness.—A Person of
Individuality.—Neatness in Manner and Clothing.—Should be
Intelligent.—Physician and Nurse Should Work in Sympathy.—A
Good Cook.—Able to Converse, but not a Gossip.—Many Such
Physicians and Nurses.
The choice of a physician and nurse for the ordeal of maternity, is a
matter of real consequence. It is not enough that you have a physician
whom you have trusted in the common ailments of life, and perforce must
have him now, lest he think it strange; the question is, do you desire
him to minister to you at this time?
Choose a clean man or woman as you value your life and comfort. Choose
one to whom you can pin your trust, and in whom you can confide
implicitly. Choose one who is above reproach, and can inspire you with
courage and hopefulness. Choose a clean doctor physically. They who do
not delight in clean linen, and clean hands, will hardly delight in
cleanliness in their attentions to you.
Finally the wife should have the unbiased choice of the physician, unless
there is some very good reason why she is not capable of a reasonable
choice. Of course it is far better that the choice of one should be the
choice of the other, and that there be perfect harmony between husband
and wife in the choice made, both for their own peace of mind, and for
the comfort of the physician. There are many cases on record of labor
being delayed, and much discomfort being caused by disappointment in the
physician desired.
Above all choose a Christian physician. The counsel of the Great
Physician is never more needed than in birth travail, and it is
comforting to feel that the human friend upon whom you depend, knows this
power and helpfulness and can direct you to Him.
In the choice of a nurse as great care and consideration are needed.
Do not depend upon the selection made by a friend; no one can choose
for you. You alone are the one concerned, and you alone are capable of
making the choice. It is well to ask your physician to recommend a nurse,
or more than one, and then ask for an interview, and mark well every
point, before you make your choice. Remember you are to have her about
you almost constantly for two or more weeks, and unless she is pleasing
to you in the outset, depend upon it, she will almost inevitably become
displeasing to you before her term of service is over.
She must be very cleanly in her person, and guilty of no idiosyncrasies
in dress or manner; of gentle voice, quiet and subdued, clean of speech,
and self-conscious enough to know her ability and prove it. She must
have a strong individuality, and an authority second to none save the
physician’s. She must not wear squeaky shoes, or wear rustling dresses,
or bright colors, or jewelry or fancy trimmings of any sort. Quietness,
unobtrusiveness, ladylikeness, and simplicity should characterize all her
dress and manner and habits.
She need not be pretty, but she must have the attractiveness of a good
face, and a kindly eye. The prettier, the more cultured and attractive,
the more versatile, the better, for she has a critical trio, or
perhaps quartet to please, and must stand between her patient and all
annoyances, between her patient and all pleasures and desires that might
be harmful. She is to be the care-taker of mother and baby, and the
court of appeal, of husband, mother and all other relatives. If she is
vacillating and weak she can claim the respect of none of these. If she
be loud and imperious in her authority, lacking the quiet dignity upon
which real power is based, she will have little influence with either her
patient or the family.
Further the physician and nurse must be in sympathy, or they cannot work
together. The physician is the authority, and the nurse like Eve to
Adam, an help meet for him. She is to have no authority independent of
the physician, save in an emergency, when she must sometimes act without
waiting to consult him. Again the nurse must know what to do and how to
do it, without asking questions. She must see and do with a quiet easy
air of generalship, that will make her patient wonder when so much gets
done, and how it could be done with so little noise or friction.
The nurse must be an excellent, attractive and inviting cook. She must
serve everything in a pleasing way, and not so great a quantity but that
her patient will wish there were more.
Finally she must not be a talker; she can read to you, converse with you,
but never gossip. The more she knows of books and people the pleasanter
her companionship.
Such doctors and such nurses, do you say, are hard to find? No, there are
many of them, but I fear the search for them is not always made with wise
discrimination. When such are sought for and demanded, they will come to
the front.
I fear we have too often sought for what we thought was ability, but
which rightly interpreted meant reputation, and too seldom for real
worth. Ian MacLaren’s doctor of Drumtochty was not a man of wide or great
reputation, but of unlimited painstaking and faithfulness. So are many of
what the world calls common men. Not that this true greatness does not
ever go with a wide reputation, but that it can as well be found with the
common painstaking, less gifted practitioner, and we should not forget
it.