Vietnam War Nurses: Personal Accounts of 18 Americans by Patricia Rushton

Author:Patricia Rushton [Rushton, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2013-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

Merlan Owen Ellis

Many nurses serving their country during the Vietnam Era did not serve in Vietnam. Yet their contribution to the nursing profession and to the service members they served made a difference. Merlan Owen Ellis served during Vietnam, but not in Vietnam. His account reflects the changing times in the nursing profession, a time where men began to enter the profession of nursing and the area of expertise called “Public Health.”

* * *

My primary academic interests centered in the biological sciences. By the summer of 1957 I had completed two years at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, where I took as many courses in the biological sciences as time would permit.

I became intrigued with nursing as a potential occupation where the biological sciences could be combined with my newly acquired fascination with the behavioral sciences. I was totally unaware of the gender ramifications.

My father wanted me to inherit the family Idaho farm homesteaded by my grandfather in the late 1800s. I was his only child who could perform the labor-intensive farming tasks. When he learned I was considering nursing as a career, he was not impressed. He frequently encouraged me to “quit that nonsense, come home, and run the farm.” Medicine or any other biological science would have been more acceptable. “Only women are nurses!” he would say. I learned he had great difficulty telling others about his son’s choice for an occupation.

I wrote to the dean of nursing at Idaho State University (ISU) for information. She welcomed my inquiry and was anxious to have men as students in the school. The first and only man to have graduated from the school did so two years earlier. I was the second man to graduate for the ISU School of Nursing.

It was a challenge for a man to be a nursing student in the early 1960s. Some of the nursing faculty did not encourage a man in nursing, contrasted by full acceptance by physicians anxious to teach. For example, during my obstetrical rotation, my instructor would not permit physical contact with the mother except to massage her uterine fundus after the birth. It was an observation experience only, except for very understanding physicians who opened the back doors repeatedly. My obstetrical nursing instructor emphatically encouraged another course of study. I found her attitude quite puzzling. (As a rather amusing side note, when I took my state boards I received my highest score in obstetrics.)

The Army had a program for student nurses, fully funding the student’s last two years of college. The student was on active duty assigned to the school with the pay grade of private first class until six months prior to graduation. The student then received an officer commission with the pay grade of first lieutenant with an active duty obligation of two years. As a husband with a child, this seemed to be an answer to prayers. However, men were excluded from the program! After loud outcries by other men and many women in nursing, the Army opened the door to men in the summer of 1963.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.