FICTION

Nursing School

by Jeri (49-K-3) FPE

Miss Dorothea Quinn, nursing supervisor and head of the department of nurses' training, was seated at her desk, checking memos, schedules, and her app- ointment book. With the newest group of student nurses scheduled to begin classes within a few days, there was a great deal to be done, even for so ex- perienced and capable an administrator.

There were the inevitable orientation lectures, the hectic registering of the new students, the many and sundry private little conferences with as many of the new students as could be scheduled, and the necessary conferences with homesick, bewildered, over-emotional young girls. Miss Quinn enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as a sympathetic and inspi- ring advisor. There were very few situations which she could not assess and meet to the satisfaction and happiness of all parties. Not that all was necessa-

rily roses. If it seemed better--or necessary that a girl leave the school, it was arranged, quietly and quickly. And so on.

On this next but one day before a new group, Miss Quinn was reviewing folders of the incoming girls. In this way, she was able to form some sort of sketchy picture of each, and her trained mind and memory linked each name to a photograph and to some salient feature in their background. One of her more admir- able traits was her never-failing ability to call each and every student by name on sight.

Still, she usually found herself becoming de- tached, even as she read. After all, she had per- sonally directed twelve classes, forty girls each-- that made some four hundred and eighty names, faces, personalities. Sure, she could and would remember each one, for as long as she was around, - and then?

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