Nuns in University

[Doctor Guazzo]

Do you have nuns in Nursing Universities teaching nursing sciences or teaching the trainees in the wards?

[Quickbeam, BSN, RN]

I got my nursing degree 20+ years ago at a Catholic university and there were no nuns teaching. When I was in clinical practice in the 1980's, I had a nun/RN working with me on a pediatric unit. This wasn't for her order, it was a job...she told me that as one of the 'young ones' she was supporting 13 retired nuns with her paycheck! Plus, her order had told her she needed to get into the Social Security system since there would probably be "no one to take care of her" when she got older.

Probably OT but I just thought of it.

[bassandtea]

No nuns, but I am attending a catholic university and have a brother that takes some of the nursing classes.

[woody62, RN]

With the drop of women and men, entering religious life, most hospitals and university programs rarely have any working or teaching. In my diocese, which covers nine counties, we have a grand total of less then twenty religious to staff our religious schools, health care clinics and two hospitals. This means we generally have one religious per school. And she is generally the principal. When Women's Lib took hold, the professional opportunities expanded greatly. And no longer were young women limited in their choice of professions.

The teaching order, Sister's of St. Joseph's Mother House was located between my home town and a town I later lived in. I watched it slowly shrink in size, from the number of women who choose the religious life, and it lost land, as it had to sell off it's property to support it's aging sisters.

Woody:twocents:

[MikeyJ, RN]

One of my 1st semester professors was a former nun.

[Doctor Guazzo]

Was it so that nuns were the only people practicing the nursing profession in the past? In Italy we had nuns practicing eclusivly nursing in the 19th century, from the 60's only non nuns women could practice the profession. Have you had the same evolution of profession in USA?

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

No, but one of our attending MDs is a nun. Very few people know it, though. She can be great (puts in her own orders sometimes!) or not so great (if she's on, you can forget withdrawing care on a pt, no matter how futile tx has become or how much the pt is suffering).

[elkpark]

There have always been Catholic hospitals and schools of nursing in the US, with many sisters practicing nursing and teaching nursing, but, since the US is not a Catholic country and Catholics have always been a minority in a very pluralistic society, the majority of hospitals (and nurses) in the US have always been non-Catholic. In my own experience, even the Catholic hospitals with which I've had personal experience over the years have always had a majority of "non-nun" nursing staff, although the hospitals were typically owned and operated by an order of nuns.

[skyes]

:

Oh my god! Nuns everywhere...

:) skyes