Oral History Program Julia Maes Pannell Interviewed by Marci Farr 8 September 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Julia Maes Pannell Interviewed by Marci Farr 8 September 2010 Copyright © 2010 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in Special Collections. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The St. Benedict’s School of Nursing was founded in 1947 by the Sisters of Mount Benedict. The school operated from April 1947 to 1968. Over the forty-one year period, the school had 605 students and 357 graduates. In 1966, the program became the basis for Weber State College’s Practical Nursing Program. This oral history project was created to capture the memories of the graduates and to add to the history of nursing education in Ogden. The interviews focus on their training, religion, and experiences working with doctors, nurses, nuns, and patients at St. Benedict’s Hospital. This project received funding from the Utah Humanities Council and the Utah Division of State History. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management Special Collections All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Julia Maes Panell, an oral history by Marci Farr, 8 September 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Julia Maes Pannell Graduation Photo Class of 1967 Julia Maes Pannell September 8, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Julia Maes Pannell, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on September 8, 2010. In this interview, Julia discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. MF: This is Marci Farr. We are interviewing Julia Maes Pannell. She graduated from St. Benedict’s School of Nursing in 1967. It is September 8, 2010. We are interviewing Julie at the Inova Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. So tell us just a little bit about your early life, where you grew up, where you attended school. JP: I grew up in Green River, Wyoming all eighteen years of my life until I left to go to St. Ben’s. I have two sisters. My father worked for the railroad. My mom was a stay at home mom. I was very active in normal high school activities. There were about fifty students in my graduation class from high school. Most of us knew each other from Kindergarten to high school. It was a small town with three thousand people at the time. I don’t know how many there are now. I haven’t been back since my fortieth high school reunion. It might be smaller, it might be bigger. MF: Why did you decide to become a nurse? JP: I guess because my mother was sick a lot and in the hospital. In those days they didn’t allow children to visit. As I grew older and could visit her I recognized that nurses were helpers. I wanted to do that. Also, in high school our school got some kind of grant for advanced biology and we were allowed to do rat surgery. 2 That was very intriguing to me too. I was also interested in science. I participated in a science fairs, my project went to state once. MF: So you took the classes that would help you along in nurses training. JP: Yes, I love science. I always found it interesteding. MF: So why did you decide St. Benedict’s? JP: It was the closest nursing school to home. MF: Was this your first time away from home when you entered nurses training? JP: Except for a couple of school trips, yes. MF: What were your first impressions when you first got there? JP: I guess we were so busy that I didn’t really have time to be homesick. I remember there was always something that had to be done or something we had to study or something we had to do. My father worked for the railroad so I had a free pass home so I went home frequently too. MF: That is good you were able to travel home. That probably helped. Who was your roommate while you were in training? JP: Pam Hunt. MF: Have you kept in contact with her? JP: No she was living somewhere in Utah. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding; we communicated for awhile but I haven’t seen her since then. MF: Were you roommates all three years? JP: No, the last two years. MF: Did you get along with her? JP: Oh yes we got along fine. We had no conflicts. 3 MF: Was there any funny stories or anything that you can remember with you two together as roommates? JP: Well Pam was very organized and I was kind of a slob in terms of keeping our room neat, she never complained. We got demerits because of me sometimes. Poor Pam she had to put up with me. MF: What about curfew? Did you guys ever try to break curfew? What were the rules? JP: We had to be in at nine o’clock during the week. I think we were allowed ten o’clock curfews junior & senior year. I can’t remember what the rules were. I know it was nine o’clock the first year and midnight on weekends unless you signed out with somebody and got permission to go to somebody’s house. We used to sign out to our friend Shelia’s a lot. MF: Then you just had to make sure you got back in. JP: We could return the next day. MF: What do you remember about the Sisters, about the nuns? JP: Sister Cassian was the director of the school. She wanted us all to be like Jackie Kennedy. That was her heroine I often wonder what she thought of her later years. She made sure we knew how to pour tea and knew how to act like ladies. MF: Did you have interactions with them as far as outside the school, like activities? JP: We had a lot of activities in our back campus. We had free volleyball games and barbeques. Sister Cassian send us to symphonies. MF: What were some of your favorite classes that you took while you were in training? 4 JP: Microbiology was probably one of my favorites. I also enjoyed my nursing classes. MF: Do you remember anything about your instructors? JP: Yes. I been trying to remember their names. I am terrible with names. It usually takes me a few days to remember names. Mrs. Mortimer was my first year instructor. I remember her. She was a retired army nurse. Mrs. Etcheverry taught OB and then there were two younger ones our senior year, they were some of our favorites and I can’t remember their names. That is pretty sad. I even have pictures of them but I can’t remember their names. MF: Was Helen Farr there at that time with you? JP: No. MF: I think she might have been at Weber at that time. Do you remember any of the doctors that you worked with? Were there any that stood out in your mind? JP: Doctor Swindler, he used to come and give us lectures about the proper shoes to wear. I injured the meniscus in my knee when I was there and he put me in the hospital. I was in traction for a week when the injury occurred. It was right before Christmas break. I missed out on all the Christmas activities at the school. MF: Not fun at all. Yes, we have heard about him. JP: He had a stern appearance but he had a heart of gold. He was good to me. MF: That I what everybody has said. What would you and your classmates do if you had a night off or had some time? JP: We went to Chris’s. Have you heard of Chris’s before? 5 MF: We’ve heard some stories. JP: Chris’s was a hangout for the Air Force and college (Weber State)—we also went out to Hill Air Force Base. The officers often invited us to—what was the word that Sister Cassian hated?—go-go dances. She hated those words. It was for dances. Chris’s was the consistent hangout. We also went dancing there. We went there strictly for dances. MF: Tell us about your rotations you went on while in training. JP: I took psych at St. Benedict’s. Some of the students went to Denver for pediatrics but I didn’t. They changed the location of the rotation before I was able to do that. OB was taught at St. Ben’s. MF: How was that, the psychiatric training? JP: Our instructor was from the University of Utah. She was in the process of getting divorced. She wasn’t very happy with us students. I remember that much. We used to go to the University of Utah for our theory and we would come do our clinical in the unit at St. Benedict’s. MF: Did you get credit from the University of Utah? JP: We did get some credit. When I went back to share and—I had lived so many places and gone to some many schools I had to get all my credits together in order to get my degree. MF: Which one do you think was your favorite as far as the floors? JP: Orthopedics. I loved orthopedics! I enjoyed putting traction on and taking it off for some weird reason. It was my favorite. MF: Which one was probably your least favorite do you think? 6 JP: I don’t know. I liked pediatrics too. Probably OB. MF: Did you have any experiences while you were on your rotations—on the different floors—that you can remember about a patient? JP: I remember the first patient that died and how frightened I was. He was somebody that was going to die, not somebody we had to resuscitate. It was a new experience to me. I had never seen death before. I can still see him clearly. MF: What do you remember about your capping ceremony? Do you remember where? JP: Oh yes I have pictures of capping ceremony. I was trying to figure out how far into the year it was. I think it was six months. I remember we got our hair done for our capping ceremony and getting our capes and our hats. We were so proud that we were no longer probees. MF: Yes now you are official. Do you remember how many started out in your class? JP: I am trying to think! It was to twenty but we only graduated ten. MF: So about half. So at this time could you be married during training? JP: No. I remember that there was a gal a year ahead of us who entered the program married. She thought she couldn’t have any children. Well in her third year she became pregnant and they wouldn’t let her graduate with her class because she was pregnant. MF: Wow. That is crazy. To go through all that time and not be able to finish. JP: She did finish. She got her diploma but she couldn’t walk with the graduating class. MF: That is crazy. 7 JP: Yes it was. You could get married the last three months only. MF: You could be engaged and that was not a problem. JP: No. Sister Cassian kept telling us that our lives would end in tragedy if you spend too much time with men. That was her way of saying you might get pregnant I guess. I don’t know. I always remember, “Your life will end in tragedy.” MF: That is a good thing to know. What do you think was probably your greatest challenge when you were in nurses training? JP: The OR I guess—when I worked in the operating room. In those days there was no such thing as abuse in terms of physicians. Some of them were really difficult to work with. MF: You have to give them that respect like they were gods or something. JP: Yes. They were on pedestals in those days. I remember even on the units when they walked in you had to stand up. MF: That is good to know. Where was graduation held? JP: It was held at a cathedral in Ogden but I don’t remember the name of the cathedral. MF: So what were your impressions of finally getting through nurse’s training? JP: It was wonderful. I couldn’t believe I actually finished. Then of course we had to take our boards. In those days boards were two days. Now they are not. They are just one big test. MF: Was that down in Salt Lake? 8 JP: Yes. Everybody went to Salt Lake. All the schools in the state went to Salt Lake. Boards were given 2 times per year. MF: So after graduation did you stay at St. Benedict’s? What did you do with your career? JP: I worked with a migrant program initially and then moved to Texas. I worked in ICU for eighteen years in Texas, Washington state, California, and here. From there I went into a home health and I worked as a staff nurse. Then I became director of nursing for one agency and moved on to another agency. In my job before this I was community liaison for Medstar. I helped with mergers in Maryland & D.C. Then I took this teaching job seven years ago. MF: This is where you teach nursing. JP: Yes. MF: Is it for the colleges that are around here or does the hospital have its own program? JP: No its not a hospital program. It is actually connected with the vocational program out of TC Williams High School. MF: So it is probably like DATC that they have in Ogden. They have the different schools that come and they can do it during high school. JP: Ours is a two year program. They have to do the second year as high school graduates when they pass their boards they get licensed as licensed practical nurses. Then they are transition eligible to George Mason University and Nova (Northern) Virginia Community College. 9 MF: That is a great thing. I appreciate you letting us visit with you. Is there anything else you have thought of while we have talked? JP: I remember the student nursing organization, National Student Nurses. I was very active in that. We went to San Francisco for a convention. I was looking at my scrapbook the other day. That was fun and educational time. It introduced us to other schools and what they were learning. MF: How do you think your training at St. Benedict’s has served you? You were trained on every level, don’t you think? JP: Yes I think that we were exposed to aspect of nursing. That made my transition to critical care very easy. I had a very good foundation. MF: Because you worked on every floor. How long did you work on every floor? JP: I think the rotations were three months. MF: Did you have many hours that you had to get in? JP: Yes. I don’t remember how many. I do remember the first ICU that was put into St. Benedict’s our senior year. We had to work a couple night shifts in the new ICU. I could probably write a book on the evolution of ICU. MF: From primitive until now. JP: It has changed. I also worked in three states so I am pretty familiar with the area. MF: You probably wouldn’t have traded that for anything. JP: No. It is a young nurse’s job. You have to be able to move fast and be able to make fast, thorough assessments quickly and make appropriate decisions . MF: Well I appreciate you letting us visit with you.