End Note
The First Bed
In the women’s ward of the old Minneapolis General Hospital, surgery patients didn’t need their doctor’s assurance to know how they were faring.
By Harrison H. Farley, M.D.
In 1960, the women’s surgical ward at the old Minneapolis General Hospital was a large room on the second floor with two rows of 11 beds each and an alcove at the far end that housed four more beds. The nurses’ station, with its desk, table, and chair, sat immediately to the right of the entrance. Adjacent to the station was the first bed in each row.
During the day, three RNs and several LPNs “manned” the ward, but at night it was staffed by only a single RN and one or two LPNs. How could so few nurses manage such a large ward? The simplistic layout helped make it possible. The ward was set up in a way that the beds closest to the nurses’ station were a defacto surgical ICU. The patients requiring the most care occupied those first beds. From her chair, the charge nurse could answer the telephone, direct her colleagues, write notes, and “holler” down the line as needed. With one step, she could suction a tracheostomy or adjust an IV.
The charge nurse at night not only had to be extremely capable, she had to be courageous and thick-skinned as well. It was a daunting job, and I’ll never understand how the administration ever talked anyone into taking it. Most of the patients behaved decently and adjusted to the military discipline of the ward. But certain patients could be difficult, including some who worked as ladies of the night in places like the Persian Palms on Hennepin Avenue or who were alcoholics and went into DTs after surgery.
After a brief stay in the recovery room following surgery, a female patient would be brought to the floor and placed in that first bed next to the nurses’ station. All others were moved down one bed toward the alcove. When my mother-in-law, Ruth Meyers, was discovered to have a parotid tumor at the angle of her jaw, I asked our surgery chief Claude R. Hitchcock, M.D., if he would do the operation. He had been trained by Arnold Kremen, M.D., an expert in head and neck surgery at the University of Minnesota.
During a long and ticklish procedure, Dr. Hitchcock was able to remove a deep lobe tumor and spare the important branches of the facial nerve. Afterward, Ruth’s head was carefully wrapped in gauze and Ace bandages. Then she was transferred to that first bed in the women’s surgical ward. Dr. Hitchcock visited her every day, changing her dressing himself. By the time of her discharge several days later, she occupied the bed closest to the alcove. I was somewhat hesitant to ask her for an evaluation of her care because, after all, this was not a private hospital. But I did.
“Wonderful care here,” she replied. “Couldn’t be better.”
“What did you like best?” I asked.
“You know exactly how you are doing.”
She looked at me with the expression of a woman who knew a good deal about life. She had lost nearly all of her savings during the Great Depression and had been lied to by her bank, her church, and even her loved ones. Expressions of truth and honesty had been rarities.
“The nurses here are special, very efficient and yet kind,” she said. “Most importantly, if they say you’re doing well, you can believe them. And if you’re moving further away from the nurse’s desk, you can be sure of it.” Those of us who spent time at that venerable institution take pride in having been a part of a hospital that made no special accommodations for patients because of their means, race, or religion. The old General may have been rough around the edges, but the people who worked there had an altruistic attitude and rendered good care to all. MM
Harrison Farley is a retired surgeon who lives in St. Paul.