Oral History Program Pamala Sutton Bindrup Interviewed by Marci Farr 19 August 2010 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Pamala Sutton Bindrup Interviewed by Marci Farr 19 August 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: Pamala Sutton Bindrup, an oral history by Marci Farr, 19 August 2010, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Pamala Sutton Bindrup Graduation Photo Class of 1962 Pamala Sutton Bindrup August 19, 2010 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Pamala Sutton Bindrup, conducted by Marci Farr and Sarah Langsdon, on August 19, 2010. In this interview, Pamala discusses her recollections and experiences with the St. Benedict’s School of Nursing. Darlene Allen, Marjorie Porter and Annette Saxton were also present during the interview. MF: This is Marci Farr. I am interviewing Pamala Sutton Bindrup. She graduated St. Benedict’s Hospital School of Nursing in 1962. Tell me about your early life, your family, and where you grew up and where you attended school. PB: I grew up in Washington Terrace, in South Ogden, Utah. I am the oldest of four girls. I went to Washington Terrace Elementary, South Junior High and Weber High School. In High School, I enjoyed my anatomy and physiology and thought dissecting frogs was very interesting and fun. MF: Tell me about your decision to become a nurse. PB: I loved to babysit and take care of my three younger sisters. When I helped my mom bottle fruit and vegetables and do the weekly was, I would pretend I was nurse helping the doctor. My mom had pneumonia and was on bed rest. I took care of her while she was very ill. That reinforced the idea that being a nurse was what I wanted to do. My grandfather and uncle were doctors and my aunt was a nurse and they were very encouraging. MF: What made you select St. Benedict’s Hospital School of Nursing? PB: During Career days, different schools and colleges were mentioned. St. Benedict’s Hospital had a good program and was not that expensive. 2 I remember my father cashed in his insurance policy for $1000.00 MF: Were there any assessments which had to be taken to be accepted into nurse’s training? PB: We were required in high school to take certain courses in order to apply for nursing. We were assessed according to these classes and grades. At the end of my senior year I took an aptitude test. The results showed I would be a good LPN but not an RN. I was hysterical; I had already applied to St. Benedict’s. I was accepted to nursing school and everything worked out. MF: What were your first impressions upon entering nurse’s training? PB: I had never been away from home before and had never associated with Catholic sisters before. I was nervous and excited. My mom helped me move in and as she was getting ready to leave, she started to cry. I said to her, “Mom we live in South Ogden, so I am only a few miles away.” MF: Was there a housemother? PB: Our housemother was Lena Borino. MF: Describe the nurse’s home. PB: When you entered the nurse’s home, there was a large foyer and at the end of the foyer was an office where you checked in and out. To the left was a very formal living room with a fireplace and a piano. Your visitors would meet with you in the living room. To the right was the hallway to the dorms. At the end of the dorms was a lounge with a pop machine and a television. MF: What was your dorm room like? PB: The room consisted of two beds, a desk and a closet. We had a window 3 which faced the mountains. The room was quite small. The bathroom and showers were at the end of the hall. MF: Who was your roommate? PB: My first roommate was Vivian Henrie. She stayed in training for about six months and then left. My second roommate was Darlene Armstrong. She graduated from Ben Lomond High School along with two other students in our school, Annette Taylor and Marjorie Lepley. At Weber High School, Ben Lomond was our rival, we played sports against each other. It was interesting having a rival as a roommate, and fellow classmates, but differences aside we became very good friends and have remained friends throughout the years and get together often. MF: Were the Sister’s strict? PB: The Sister’s we very strict and expected you to obey the dorm rules and curfews. Lights were to be out at 10:00 p.m. on school nights and if you went out, you had to be in at 10:00 p.m. Our curfew on the weekends was 12:00 a.m.; you came in the front door of the hospital and signed in at the desk. You then had to walk through the tunnel which connected the hospital to the dorms. It was well lit but still scary to be in there alone. The first six months of training you could not leave the dorm in the evenings and were required to study. You were not allowed to marry while in training. MF: Was there a probationary period while you were in training? PB: The first six months of training was the probationary period. We were called probies and had a big sister, one of the older students to help us adjust. Sister 4 Berno was the director of the school. She was very nice and concerned about all of us. If your grades were not good enough or you had broken some rules, you were gone. MF: What were some of the courses you took? Were the courses taught at Weber College or at the hospital? PB: Our classes were in the basement of the dormitory. We studied chemistry for nursing, math for nursing, pharmacology for nursing, anatomy and physiology, sociology and ethics classes. I always remember in every class the instructor would say, “This question will be on the state boards”. I thought I probably will never pass state boards. We also had classes on patient care, treatments and procedures. We would practice on each other, giving bed baths and treatments. To give injections we would practice on an orange. MF: Who were some of your instructors? PB: Ruth Wheeler, Verla Ekins, Rosemary Sullivan, Joan White, Janice Hassell. We had a sister who taught anatomy and physiology. She would lecture during the class period and you would write notes frantically. You would study the notes all night and try to have every bit of it in your mind. She would call on you the next day and say, “Miss Sutton”, and then ask you a question about what she had lectured on. You never said, “I don’t know”. You came up with something, and some parts of the body would have some really weird or funny names. But you didn’t laugh about it because this was serious business. Sister Rebecca taught math. She was wonderful. If it had not been for Sister Rebecca we would not have made it in our math class. She would spend extra time with Darlene 5 and I and helped us understand the math problems we were struggling with. We had Sister Bonaface who was our dietary instructor. She had glasses that were thick as coke bottles. She could hardly see. She was so intimidating. As students, we worked in the tray line. We had to work very fast, with the hot liquids and make sure everything was marked on the diet plan was on the tray. She would say, “Don’t drop a tray”, and the minute she would say that, that was the first thing you would do. We also had doctors who would come and lecture to us. Some of them were, Dr. Swindler, an orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. Demars, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and Dr. Utterback, a dermatologist. MF: What were some of your first assigned duties on the floor? PB: Every morning we would do AM care which consisted of gathering all of the water pitchers and filling them with fresh water. Darlene and I were doing this together and walked into a room. We discovered this young man lying on the bed in his underwear; his whitey tighties. I turned around and walked out of the room, Darlene grabbed me and said, “Pam, it’s just his underwear.” We would go to the floor after our classes and do PM care in the afternoon. From September to March these were our duties. I was in charge of half the floor and had patients to get ready for surgery. I said to the other nurse who covered the other half of the floor, “I have to do this procedure. I watched them do it in class.” She said, “Well go ahead, you will be fine and if you need any help, let me know.” MF: Were you required to attend Mass on Sunday? PB: We were not required to attend Mass on Sunday. We were asked to attend 6 morning prayers during the week. You would walk into the chapel and they would hand you a piece of paper with the prayer written on it which you would repeat all together. Following the recitation everyone would file out of the chapel. It was so different from our LDS prayers. We attended for about a week and then decided to meet as a group of LDS girls and have our own prayers. We knelt in prayer every morning in one of our rooms. I think these prayers sustained and helped us through our nurse’s training. MF: Tell us about the capping ceremony. PB: The capping ceremony was held in the living room of the nurse’s home. We wore our white starched dresses, white stockings, and white shoes. The cap was placed on our heads and we carried a Florence Nightingale Lamp, which was lit. We repeated the Florence Nightingale pledge and sang a song. It was a great climax to the first six months of very hard work, worry and stress. MF: How long were you assigned to each floor? Describe duties assigned. PB: We had three months rotation through the departments of the hospital. There were four students in a rotation. We gave bed baths, treatments, and medications. We had an instructor with us to supervise. The hardest thing I found when working on the floors was getting everything done in a certain time frame. We practiced giving bed baths to each other and had plenty of time. On the floor you had four bed baths to give, plus treatments in three or four hours. It was hard to give good care and yet meet time constraints. Welcome to the real world. MF: Were there any traditions at St. Benedict’s? During the holidays? PB: We would have a banquet during the holidays. It was a very formal sit down 7 dinner and we wore dresses. We were seated two students to a Sister so everybody was sitting by a Sister. We were told to watch Sister Berno and do what she does. That is how I learned to eat chicken with a knife and fork. To this day I sill eat chicken with a knife and fork and it feels strange to pick up a piece of chicken with my fingers. We had a yearly spaghetti dinner. It was a benefit dinner and the public was invited. The money we earned was used to send two students to a nurse’s convention. MF: When and where was graduation held? What were your impressions? PB: Our graduation was held August 1, 1962 at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Ogden. We walked down the aisle flanked by the Knights of Columbus carrying a bouquet of roses. We received our diploma and knelt and kissed the Father’s ring. This was all very different for me, but I enjoyed seeing the way the Catholic Church did things. MF: After graduation did you stay at St. Benedict’s? PB: I worked at St. Benedict’s for ten years. My first assignment was as a float nurse going to different floors as I was needed. I didn’t like working as a float nurse, you would get used to their routines and personnel and then you were moved to another floor. An opening became available in the Emergency Room and I was transferred there. I really liked working in the ER. I worked afternoons, so I didn’t have to get a babysitter for a long period of time. I worked two days a week and a lot of those days would be on the weekends. That was hard to do but one of the things you expected when you were low man on the totem pole. MF: Did you work at any other hospital besides St. Benedict’s? 8 PB: In 1975, I started working at McKay-Dee Hospital in outpatient surgery and worked there for 26 years. MF: How do you think your training at St. Benedict’s served you after graduation? PB: When we graduated we could work on most any floor and were able to do all the procedures. It was interesting to see the difference in our capabilities and those of four year graduates from college programs. They knew everything in the books but could not care for patents, do procedures or treatments. MF: When did you retire? PB: I retired in 2001, but worked for two years on an on call status which turned out to be one ten hour shift a week. I couldn’t just quit completely all at once. When we were called on a mission for my church for eighteen months, I wanted a leave of absence but not possible so I finally called it quits in 2003. MF: How has nursing changed over the years? PB: When I worked in the ER we didn’t have a full time ER doctor. When a patient came in we would call the doctor on call. They would get there in 15 or 20 minutes. If we needed help right away we would call one of the interns. The ambulance drivers did not call ahead and tell us what they were bringing in; they just drove up to the entrance and wheeled the patient in. It was a miracle we kept people alive. You could never relax as a nurse because you never knew what was going to happen next. When I worked in outpatient we did not have a lot of nurses or rooms. We were required to get 30-40 patients ready for surgery and recovered with 13 cubicles. Some of the patients were inpatients after surgery which helped. We 9 also did blood transfusions and minor surgery. It was non-stop all day long. When the new hospital was built, there was an area to get patients ready for surgery, another area to take care of the out patients. We didn’t do any IV therapy that was done in another department. Minor surgery was done in the OR. We had more nurses to cover that area.