VPRS 17586 General Nursing Course Student Applications

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 General Nursing Student Applications. This series is the only remaining sample of student application forms for any nursing course at The Royal Women's Hospital (also known as "The Women's".). These records are controlled by VPRS 17590p0001 Nursing Student Application Index and VPRS 17593p0001 Nursing Student Application Registers. Notations in the latter registers refer to the fact that the applications were deemed temporary and were to be destroyed three months after each group completed its course. The surviving applications are a very small proportion of those received during the period.The Royal Women's Hospital offered its own three year General Nursing course from 1940 until circa 1953. The last course intake group was in 1950. General Nursing was offered in conjunction with The Alfred and Prince Henry's Hospitals so that its students had the opportunity to also gain experience in specialities not relating to women's health. The course consisted of twelve months at The Women's, eighteen months at one of the two affiliated hospitals, and then the last six months back at The Royal Women's Hospital.The General Nursing Student Applications always comprise the "Pupil Nurse's Application Form" and later "Application for Enrolment" (forms were used concurrently for several years). Other documents included with each application were: testimonials; birth extracts; correspondence relating to the person's application, their progression through the course; sick leave and resignation; certificates of secondary school and tertiary education qualifications; employment verification certificates; Deed Poll Change of Name certificates; post course references for the student. Some of the correspondence and requests for references post date the applications.This series also includes four Gynaecology applications (1944 to 1951) which seem to have been misfiled at the time.