Oral History Program Jeanette Compagni Smyth Interviewed by Kathryn Burnside 18 July 2002 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jeanette Compagni Smyth Interviewed by Kathryn Burnside 18 July 2002 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii 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 University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ 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. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Smyth, Jeanette Compagni, an oral history by Kathryn Burnside, 18 July 2002, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Jeanette Compagni Smyth. The interview was conducted on July 18, 2002, by Kathryn Burnside, at the Ogden Regional Medical Center. Mrs. Smyth discusses her knowledge and experiences in regards to her education and career in the medical field in Utah. Also present during the interview is Kathryn MacKay. KB: My name is Kathryn Burnside. I am a student at Weber State University. We are here at the Ogden Regional Medical Center in the office of Jeanette Smyth. She is a former student from the St. Benedict's Nursing School. Today's date is July 18, 2002. We'll let Jeanette introduce herself, and would you give us your maiden name as well? JS: My name is Jeanette Compagni Smyth. KB: You also will hear from Professor Kathryn MacKay from Weber State University. Jeanette, can we begin by asking you to give us some biographical information? Tell us where you were born and when, and little bit about where you grew up. JS: I was born in Sunnyside, Utah, on October 28, 1938. I grew up there and went to school there. During my senior year I took college courses and then following in 1956 came to St. Benedict's School of Nursing and graduated from there in 1959. Actually, took a job at home again, in the little clinic after graduation and worked there for a year. In the meantime I became engaged. So I moved back here to Ogden and worked at St. Benedict's Hospital in medical floor also for about a year. Then Dr. Charles Swindler asked me to work for him in orthopedics, so I became his office manager and scrub nurse for twenty four years. Following that he was getting ready to retire. In the 1 meantime I got back to Westminster College and got a bachelor's degree in nursing; took some extra classes in microbiology because I was interested. Then I was offered a job here. I was offered a job elsewhere at McKay also, but I chose to come back to home roots. I wanted to do orthopedics but they didn't have a job opening, I took a job in the recovery room because I didn't want to scrub anymore. After scrubbing in surgery for twenty-four years, I wanted something else. In the meantime the nurse who had the infection control job here became ill. She was also a St. Benedict's graduate. Her name was Donna Price. She became ill and they asked me to come and help out, which I did, and she eventually died and I ended up staying on. I became certified in infection control and already was certified in orthopedic nursing and operating room nursing by that time. So I've been here for 19 years. I had two careers. I do consulting. I've taught at Weber State. I used to do the osiotraining (?) for them in the nursing program and then they changed their vendor, so now someone else does that. KM: We've heard stories about Dr. Swindler. Do you want to add to those stories? Twentyfour years is a long time. JS: Yes, he was one of the most professional people. People say, "Why did you stay in the office that long?" Well, primarily, I was raising my family, but I never quit learning from him; we always had something more to learn, more to do. And it just was a challenge and a very pleasant and wonderful relationship, still to this day. I babysat his children when they went out, and then he took care of my children when they got sick. So, it was a good relationship. KB: Can we ask you to go back and tell us why you went into nursing? 2 JS: Well, you know I was thinking about that, because I knew you would ask this question. When I was in the 7th grade we had to ride the bus to school, which was about three miles away from my little town. There was a nurse who worked in the clinic, in the hospital there, and she'd walk to work, and every morning I'd see her in white shoes, clothes and her uniform of cape and a cap. Then I thought I wanted to do that. And then when I became a junior I did candy striping in the old Price Hospital and decided that's what I wanted to do. I was going to go to Holy Cross in Salt Lake City, but I ended up in Ogden, because I had two cousins that were at St. Benedict's School of Nursing that said "Oh, you've got to come up and go to school with me." Well, one of them quit. The other one did graduate, a year before I did. Her name is Luanne Marie Tallerico. She's been an instructor; her husband is a pharmacist. KM: Does your family have roots in mining? JS: Yes. My dad was the master mechanic. My mother's family's name was Farlino; there was a restaurant in Price called the Farlino restaurant. It was owned by my brother, and he sold it to my cousin. KB: You graduated in 1959? Can you tell us about your schedule that you had to keep when you went to school? JS: It's been a long time. But I can actually remember a lot of things. I remember funny things that we did. The nuns, the sisters, knew we were doing them, but we thought we were getting away with things; like rolling up our skirts to go to chapel, sneaking out the bottom to go out after curfew. Our schedule was very tight. We were up at chapel early in the morning, by seven o'clock, and we had classes as probies (we called ourselves probies initially) and classes all day and in the second year we worked the floor- doing 3 the clinicals. We had full schedules. We had so much time we had to spend in the library studying, and of course, we had to be in the bed at ten o'clock in night. It was a tight schedule, but it was very disciplined. My mother was glad I was here under the thumb of the sisters, because I was the only daughter and the oldest, and she wasn't willing to send me anywhere where I could get into any trouble. KM: I'm assuming there were many students in your class that didn't have a Catholic background. JS: Correct. In fact, our class was one of the largest classes that graduated. And our class was more non-Catholic than Catholic. But we were all together. They didn't ever buck the idea they had to go to chapel, because if you think of the kids that were raised in our era, we didn't mind discipline. We didn't buck the system that much. There were maybe one or two in our class and they end up quitting, you know. They knew they were coming to the Catholic school and so they accepted the idea that this is the protocol. KM: Did you ever find yourself translating Catholicism one-on-one to any of those that were not Catholic? JS: Yes, a couple of them would ask questions. And we would give them lessons. But the nuns were good at it, too. They had answers to all questions. And they were very attuned to the non-Catholic. And most sisters are, because most Catholic schools across the country have a lot of non-Catholic students; it's such a good education. We didn't have that real separation between Catholics and non-Catholics that you might see in some communities. 4 KM: It's also true, when people are connected to each other for a long time, all going through the same things, trying to survive, cultural and ethnic differences don't matter, because you all work towards the same goal. JS: Right, and we all were within the same intelligence group, because you had to have so much of a GPA to get in. And if you did not make that grade within few months, you were gone. So, there you are thinking you're 9th in the class of 110 and you come up here and you are striving to succeed. We had study groups to help each other. Our group melted together a lot. In fact, there are about fifteen of us that still get together every year. We got along together. KB: You would have to, probably, leave campus occasionally to get some training that wasn't available then. Can you tell us about that? JS: Yes, we had the great opportunity to go to Denver Children's Hospital for pediatrics, and Nebraska State Institution for Psychiatric. That was really a challenge, especially for a person like me. I was a very protected child. I had never been away from home before. I was really shy at that time. I'd walk miles not to talk to an adult, even though I had the most associations with adults, being the first grandchild and the first child in the family. But still there was this shyness. And my mother kept me very close; I wasn't able to date till I was sixteen. So, coming here I had that little bit of freedom, but we still had such rules to follow. It was interesting. Denver was an excellent experience. The teachers were excellent. I got to know two of them very well; they wrote the pediatric textbook, and I got the only signed copy, because I made friends with those two teachers. Then in Nebraska, that was very interesting. You take a small town girl and stick her in the place where you see all these things, and your eyes are opened wide every day, because you 5 see different things. That was an excellent training, to understand the reasons behind... at that time they were still doing insulin shock and electric therapy and that was a sight to behold; the state doesn't believe in it; there is better living through chemistry than torture. I had good experiences and I wouldn't give it up for anything, because they don't do that anymore. KB: Are there any other early procedures or practices that would be odd now, that come to your mind that you did back then? JS: Oh, yes, the old poultices that we'd have to make out of mustard plasters, and the old suction treatments we had to do, even though they still do bit of it, basically, but the old make-shift equipment we used to put together. As smart as I thought I was, I was the first probie to wash all the thermometers in one unit. At that time we had about forty patients. As my mother taught me, you wash everything in hot water and soap. Well, when I took them out of there, of course they were all exploded, Sister Mary Gerard, bless her heart, said "You're going to pay for these, Ms. Compagni. You broke all these thermometers..." And then you go on, and the director of the school, Sister Berno, says "It's okay, just learn from this." The funny part about that, I tease Sister Berno when I see her now. When I was in training I was thin, and I had a very tiny waist. Of course I was little more on top and bottom, and so she'd say "Ms. Compagni, you're tightening your belt too tight." And I would say, "Sister, it's not. See, it's loose." I had that hourglass figure, and now, I told her, she cursed me, because I no longer have that hourglass figure. Our uniforms were starched and pressed. That's another thing, seeing nurses all starched, pressed and proper and having to always bend your knees to do 6 any of the work. And now, they are in scrubs that you can't tell whether they are nurses or what. It's different. It's been a change. KB: In talking with others it sounds like there was a pride in the old uniform, and respect that was taught in the old system. Were caps worn in a certain way? JS: Our caps had to be on straight, yes. It couldn't be too far on the back of the head. It had to be starched and pressed. KB: Did you learn a protocol with the doctors? How were you supposed to act? JS: Oh, that was certainly different from now. No one on the first name basis. When they came through you stood up and made sure they had their charts. You'd go get them their coffee. They were the boss. Of course now they are on the first name basis, and they have to fend for themselves, because the nurses are busy doing other things. And we were really technical nurses, you know. We made a lot of decisions. And sometimes you think about the decision you made and should you have made that decision about the patient care, but they trusted us, because St. Benedict's training was excellent. Catholic nurses' training is very well-rounded and detailed. We got a lot of good information. KM: Do you have a sense that there is too much reliance on the mechanics and technology? I am really struck by your comment that you were valued as someone that could make the decision- could analyze, work through a set of information - and I think a lot of this is given over to machines in ways that are not healthy. Can I use the word "healthy"? JS: Well, the machines tell you a lot, but sometimes with that intuitive nature and the background that we have, we can walk in there and see if the patient was in trouble. 7 Just by giving them a bed-bath. If you get a bed-bath you're lucky now, because you're not in the hospital that long. But that was an opportunity to assess that patient from head to foot. Now they don't see the total patient anymore, unless they're on ICU or critical area. So they have to look for things. And I know that even in the literature they are saying, there are shortages of nurses there, and things are happening to patients. Why? They are not in that room to see, and it's a little frightening to me. And it's a little frightening to me why people go into nursing now. They go into nursing because now we are getting a better pay. My first salary was $1.32 an hour, and of course bread was 25 cents, but still, who else was making $1.32 that put in the time, the effort and had as much responsibility as nurses did? Not too many people. In my time we weren't even allowed to have social security. So, all these things have changed. Working for someone like Dr. Swindler and the old surgeons like Dr. Howe, that look at the patient and say, "You've got a gall bladder, we've got to get it out," without having to have an MRI and ultrasound, they knew. But if they were out in the field could they make that decision without all this stuff? Some of them can. KM: I'm often wondering, particularly in our society, which puts emphasis on commercialization and technicalization of the medical care, if we shouldn't require that every medical student spend a year outside the US, in a field hospital some place where they don't have this technology. JS: They don't even need to go out of the US. They can go down to these rural areas and work in the small clinics where they have all these things. Or to Indian reservations. When I went to nurses' training we had to spend so much time in the operating room. But nurses now just go in and observe, they don't do hands- on. We had to be right in 8 there. There were nurses that hated it. It's like anything else: you find your niche, and I loved that. And you find your niche, where you really shine. That's where you should go. And that's why nurses are specializing now. But before you had to do everything. And sometimes you lose; some people can do it all, and some people can't. I've met nurses that are going into infection control and they had only a couple years of nursing. And I am thinking how can they do this job that you have to know everything about everything to be able to do it well. You lose. Institutions lose, patients lose, and employees lose. Because they should really demand that person to have at least five years of nursing; hands-on nursing experience. KM: Can you describe for us a particular operation that you were involved with? A particular note you still remember and think about? Something you were, perhaps, particularly proud of? JS: He did so much. He would always say, if the patient can't walk, take him to Dr. Swindler and he'll get him walking again. I remember a young man who had a tumor on his spine, and it was a cancer. To see that and know that it had invaded and know that he won't going to live long. I've seen him take little children with club feet and real deformities. Back then a lot of people were bringing children from Vietnam and we took care of so many of those. There were so many things, I couldn't tell you. I loved doing shoulder repairs. We just had a system, because that's working in this tiny spot and you had to make sure you had a bazillion sutures and you have to know which one is what. KB: Tell us about early sutures as opposed to the latest ones. JS: Initially, the first ones came with a blade and you had to cut around it. Now, it's so simple. There are packages you open, and little needles are just sitting there and you 9 can just take them out and work fast with them. In fact when we had our 50th reunion for the nursing school, I was in charge of that. I found some of those. There was Bill Possy that worked at the old hospital as a head of materials management since the day they opened. So, he had some and gave them to me and we displayed them. KB: I think you got to know Dr. Swindler very well in that room, and what he needed. JS: Anticipation. We had to anticipate what he needed. KB: Did you like teaching? JS: I did. I enjoyed teaching. Actually, sharing information and seeing people got what you taught was interesting. KB: You really bring a lot of experience into your teaching. JS: See, this job is teaching every day. It's constant, because things change and I have to change protocols and make sure that we're practicing, so that we improve patient care. KB: So, are you a boring teacher? JS: Not totally. I don't like to do all that homework at home that teachers have to do. KM: What wouldn't the general public know about nursing? JS: They are getting more and more knowledgeable, because everything is coming out now; they are publishing everything. You wouldn't know what the rate of infection was in the hospital, and now they are publishing that. So, the public is becoming very aware of what's happening. The sad part about it is, we're still doing the same thing- we're educating. What bothers me the most about this is the inability to grasp an understanding of HIV. Because we've got more cases now between the ages of 19 and 10 25 than we ever had since we've been looking at this disease in early 1980's. And the public isn't getting it. Some of the ethnic groups aren't getting it, because of their beliefs, lack of education, etc. When you have women- you have children. Even though 40% of them probably won't get it from mothers, the other 60% will. KB: I wonder, if we haven't done a good job to help people understand, will it infect all of us? JS: It was such a political disease to begin with, and if they'd left it in infectious disease and let them run with that, not put a label on it, I think we would've been further ahead. But the sad part about it is that it's human behavior and it's the hardest thing to change. For instance, getting nurses to use safety instruments instead of the ones that aren't safe. That's a whole behavior changing; they have to work on that. It's hard. I was looking through some pictures the other day and I came across this picture: I weighed about 119 pounds. I was engaged to my husband, and of course we couldn't be married in nursing training, so I was engaged for three years. He would call me on the phone. We lived in the dormitory and we had to go way down the hall to get the phone. I was in the shower when he called. Couple of my friends took all my clothes, and of course I had to go and answer the phone. I thought what I was going to do. So, I took the shower curtain, wrapped it around me and was going down the hall, while they were waiting. They took the shower curtain, and I didn't know what to do, and so I got down quickly and grabbed my knees and I was holding my knees down the floor and they took a picture. The sisters would check at night, making sure we were in bed. We had a sister by the name of Sister David Anan, she has died. She was proctor. And my mother, bless her heart, she was sure that I was dying, because when I got here I was so homesick; my first roommate quit and I was alone. I was too homesick and I lost a lot of 11 weight and got weak. Then I went home and my mother took a look at me in pride, because I was hollowed in and my clothes were hanging all over. So, she thought she needed to help me out. She talked me into going back, because I wanted to quit. So, I went back to the nursing home. My mother started sending me packages. She was an excellent cook. You could smell the box when it came. I shared with everybody and we'd share at nights. We'd wait till lights were out. One night, I was ready to go and get everybody, and I opened the door. There was Sister David Anan standing. She asked where I was going. I had to say to the bathroom. But she knew. KM: Were you involved in any activities such as baseball, basketball? JS: Yes, we did that. KM: Would the students sponsor dances? JS: Yes, we had those. I was engaged, so I didn't participate. There was a youth group from the St. Joseph's Catholic school that we would get together with. We had dances down there. Older students would have New Year's dances and so on. We also had a Halloween dance, when we'd dress up and go to the dance. KB: Did they hold dances down at St. Joseph's in the basement? JS: Yes. KM: We really appreciate you taking time and sharing your experiences. JS: You're welcome. It was great; we had excellent teachers. My favorite teacher's name was Jeane Morton. I really admired her very much. I can still close my eyes and see her with her arms folded in her long uniform standing up there. She had the cutest little cap. She was always so neat, and an excellent teacher. I learned a lot from Jeane. All of the 12 teachers offered something. I have the albums of all the students. I'm the carrier and the keeper of that for the alumni association. I think it's a good idea, because I am not going to be here forever. We have a reunion every five years and the sad thing is we put them out (about three times) and people took the pictures out. The other sad thing is, we put them together, but we weren't very smart. It's not on acid-free paper. They've preserved quite well. In fact, I can show you. 13