VPRS 17594 Nursing Education Tutorial and Lecture Attendance Books

Full description

Administrative History on Nursing Education:

In circa 1859, Melbourne-Lying-In Hospital and Infirmary for Diseases of Women and Children (now The Royal Women's Hospital) commenced training in midwifery nursing. The Hospital established a formal three months certificate course in 1862 and a Gynaecology course in 1888. Up until 1993, these two training schemes were the platform of the nursing education programme; throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, midwifery and gynaecology training was extended, shortened, and re-shaped, to cope with the hospital's exigencies and changing government regulations.

The Women's became a centre for general nursing training during the 1940s and 1950s. This course had an emphasis in gynaecological nursing, but also included an external placement with another hospital, for the students to extend their training and experience in other areas of nursing.

A range of other training courses were conducted or facilitated by the hospital, responding to advancements in medical technology. These included: Neonatal Paediatrics; Cytotoxic Drug Therapy; Family Planning etc.

The Kathleen Syme Education Centre at The Royal Women's Hospital school closed in 1993 when the nursing courses in Midwifery, Gynaecology and Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing became university postgraduate qualifications rather than hospital based courses.

Series Description:

This series comprises the Nursing Student Tutorial and Lecture Attendance Books. These volumes cover the years 1947 to 1992 and are most likely the remaining collection of a much larger sequence of records. Lectures were given by both the Nurse Tutors and members of the Senior Medical Staff. The training courses represented in these volumes include: Midwifery; General Nursing; Nursing Aid (later State Enrolled Nurse); Post Basic Theatre; Post Graduate Gynaecology; Family Planning; Blood Pressure; Reorientation and Midwifery Refreshers. The volumes record the clinical tuition of both the hospital's own students and those from other hospitals (e.g. Repatriation General and Austin), undertaking the gynaecology component of General Nursing at The Royal Women's Hospital.

The Tutorial and Lecture Attendance Books were compiled by the Nurse Tutors in exercise books; the format of information is inconsistent and changed from volume to volume. Most of the volumes were multi-purpose records and both ends of each volume would be used for different information. The teaching staff also wrote notes and syllabus lecture and tutorial lists in the volumes.

Each course group was generally recorded by date of commencement and not conclusion. This methodology is reflected in the Records Description List. The date range given for each volume comprises the first and last intake commencement dates. In the earlier volumes this date was often the only one provided and for consistency this methodology has been adopted for all the volumes. As the earliest volumes do not indicate class groups, the date ranges are chronological by first and last entry.

The volumes generally present the student information within single and double page column formats; often arranged in course intake categories by student's surname (not necessarily alphabetical) and the titles of the course components, including revision tutorials and tests the students were required to attend. Some of the volumes also include syllabus lists.

The earlier administrators used a tick or stroke to mark the attendance of each student at each lecture; later volumes have a combination of several systems including numbers, a fraction system and letter allocations (needs further research).