Description and Context
As the second nursing school in North Carolina, the Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing attracted applicants primarily from the Mid-Atlantic region. Instruction was provided in theory and clinical skills and combined lectures with bedside teaching. In 1910, the curriculum was lengthened to three years to meet increasing statewide standards for licensure. Miss Patty Carter, Director of Nursing, stands on the far right of the top row of this c. 1912 image, which also includes the graduating class. Miss Carter instilled into the students the tenets of "Ethics and Hospital Etiquette" which read, "Nurses must at all times observe the ethics of nursing, cultivate a professional spirit which includes a cheerful, willing obedience to authority, as well as the trying of duties of the sick room. Dignity, decorum, and quite of manner must be observed. Unnecessary waste of time must be avoided. All communications with visiting doctors, interns, patients, orderlies or any other person shall be strictly professional."