is
engaged. The duties of a trained nurse are fixed by nursing laws and
medical rules and cannot be changed or modified by private agreement. These
laws and rules, however, are not sufficiently arbitrary to make it
impossible for the nurse to be obliging, courteous, and
sincere,--qualifications which every patient has a right to expect, and a
right to insist upon from every graduate nurse.

The selection of a nurse should receive careful consideration. She should
be known to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean
in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should
attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should
not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and
she should not drag into the conversation her own personal or family
secrets.

The nurse has certain rights which the patient should willingly recognize.
She is entitled to a comfortable bed, sufficient sleep, good food, and
exercise in the open air every day. These are essential in order that [72]
she maintain her own health, as well as keep at the highest point of
efficiency.

When you select your physician consult with him regarding your nurse. If
you know personally a capable nurse, there is no objection to selecting
her, and no physician will oppose this procedure if you assume the
responsibility of her capability.

There are many advantages, however, in permitting the physician to provide
a nurse. He assumes the responsibility of the nurse's capability, and it is
safe to assume he will not recommend one whom he knows to be personally
objectionable, or professionally incapable. Every physician acquires
certain individual methods in the conduct of maternity cases, which
experience has taught him to be successful. A competent knowledge of these
methods by the nurse greatly facilitates the details and ensures a
harmonious conduct of the entire case,--facts which accrue to the comfort
and the well-being of the patient.

It is not out of place here to warn a young wife against being advised by a
neighbor or a busybody, as to whom she should select as physician or nurse.
You must not depend upon the gossip of the neighborhood. The physician or
nurse whom you are told by one of these irresponsible individuals not to
take, may be the one above all others whom you should take. When you hear a
gossiping woman decry a physician, depend upon it, she owes him
something