The Aftermath Classes

 The Aftermath Classes

I was asked to give a brief summary of my life after nursing school, my uniform, hat, and place that I worked. The following is what I wrote and I will use it today as my post. After I graduated from Connellsville Senior High School in 1967, I worked at a valve-making factory in South Greensburg, Pennsylvania called Walworth Company until I joined the Navy in 1968. Basic training, corps school, stationed in Orlando, Florida, then in Keflavik, Iceland before discharge. I got “early outs” to attend Pennsylvania State University in the nursing program, knocking off the four year BSN degree in three years, graduating in 1976.

The uniforms for the men were navy blue slacks and a white uniform top with the initials PSU embroidered on the pocket. Men didn’t have a cap to wear, but the women’s cap looked like a Melita coffee filter with a navy blue ribbon band, however that did not stop the females from harassing me. One day in clinical, the women revolted, went to the kitchen and attached an industrial sized coffee filter to my head with bobby pins. (I actually had thick hair then.) Our clinical was in an elderly care home, the old people loved it, and so I wore it the rest of the day. When I returned for the next clinical, I wasn’t wearing “my cap” and the women burses remembered and asked where mt cap was.I finally told them that “it was dirty. You know, I washed it and it fell apart.” They laughed and it was smooth sailing after that.

I received my degree in 1976 and was married shortly after that. My first job was at Monsour Hospital in Jeanette, but soon after found employment at H. C. Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania. It was much closer and a more friendly atmosphere.

The first three years at Frick, I worked the 11-7 shift, where people go grump in the night. The next five years I was blessed with working in the emergency department with some wonderful physicians and other nurses. The rest of my career there before retiring after thirty-four years, I was blessed/ cursed with the position of a nursing supervisor and responsible for the entire hospital, working the off shifts and every other weekend.