PRIMED educational associates is a Canadian nursing institution that is dedicated to helping nursing graduates achieve
success on their exams through education and support. As NCLEX prep educators,
we train nurses to be valuable members of the Canadian healthcare system. Our
courses prepare nursing graduates for the final test before becoming registered
nurses in Canada. But our program and all of the nursing programs in Canada,
would not be where they are today without the dedication and resilience of a
select group of Canadian nurses that started a tradition of exemplary education services.
This week we would like to honour one of
Western Canada's most recognized nurses and a pioneer in the field of nursing
education in our country. This is a brief summary of the life of Mary Ellen
Birtles - a leader; a teacher; a nurse.
Mary Ellen Birtles was one of the first nurses
trained in Canada. Her family emigrated from Yorkshire, England and settled in
Winnipeg, Manitoba. She briefly taught at a schoolhouse, where her father was
working, but switched professions to work as an aide at the Winnipeg General
Hospital in 1886. With no formal training establishment for nursing, Birtles
began her medical career by acquiring practical knowledge. "Sometimes we
got a little instruction from the doctor on his rounds," Birltes was
quoted as saying, "but we were fortunate in finding some books in a
second-hand bookstore, on anatomy and physiology; from these we studied
together with a book on nursing by Florence Nightingale."
In 1887, a nursing school was finally
established at Winnipeg General Hospital and Birtles was one of the first three
graduates in 1889. She left Winnipeg to travel to North Dakota, where she
worked in a hospital for a few short months south of the border. She left the
Union to help with a new hospital that was opening in Medicine Hat, which at
the time was part of the Northwest Territories.
The Medicine Hat General Hospital was one the
first in the territories and was the only hospital between Winnipeg and
Victoria. She worked as an assistant to the matron nurse, Grace Reynolds.
Reynolds had been trained in England by a Miss Gordan, who herself had been
trained by the author of Birtles early textbooks, Florence Nightingale.
At MHGS, Birtles and the other nurses were
responsible for the complete upkeep of the hospital. Their duties included
cooking, cleaning, maintaining the furnace, looking after patients and
assisting with surgery. Their only only off hours were on Sunday, when they
were excused from their duties to attend church.
Much of their time was spent attending patients
with broken limbs. Most of these breaks were the result of pioneers falling
from their horses.
As a Canadian field nurse, Birtles relied
heavily on her early schooling, but she was also required to invent her own
methods. Thinking on one's feet and developing new techniques, was all part of
working in a remote environment.
During her time in Medicine Hat, a typhoid
epidemic broke out and Birtles contracted the fever from one of her patients.
She recovered, under the care of Grace Reynolds, who miraculously avoided the
disease.
In 1892 she was offered the head nurse position
in Brandon, Manitoba, which she held for two years before returning west to
take up the reigns of Calgary's first hospital, Calgary General. With 25
permanent beds and only a few trained nurses under her watch (she was
apparently extremely strict), Birtles opened a nursing school with three other
nurses to boost the number of trained medical professionals in the Calgary
area. Her extensive field experience, academic nature and early work in the
schoolhouse made her a natural for the position. Even with this background,
Birtles questioned her abilities as a teacher. It was her pioneer spirit that
prevailed, leading to the opening of the school. "I felt I knew very
little to face the world with," she claimed, "but by dint of reading
and studying and using the powers of observation, I gathered up all I
could."
As if opening two hospitals and a school was
not enough, Birtles went on to extend her expertise into the new field of
aseptic procedure. To reduce the costs of disinfectants and sterilized
instruments, Birtles learned to mix compounds without the help of the local
pharmacists. This produced huge savings for the hospital and the funds were
able to go to more pressing concerns.
In 1898, she moved back to Brandon where she
continued to work at the Brandon General Hospital until 1919.
For her dedication to the nursing field in Western Canada, Mary
Ellen Birtles was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1935 by the
Governor General of Canada.
