As early as 1920, the establishment of a nursing school was authorized by the general faculty of the university. An announcement in the March 1920 Wisconsin Alumni Magazine read, “A training school for nurses has been established in connection with the infirmary and Bradley Memorial Hospital at the university under the direction of the Medical School. Florence Patterson, graduate of Northwestern and Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses, will be in charge. Applicants for admission to the course must be graduates of high schools accredited by the university and must be between 19 and 35 years of age. Successful completion of the course will lead to a certificate of graduation.”
However, with no funds appropriated for the school, and a lack of clinical facilities present, the first attempt was quickly shut down and the school was short-lived. The five students who had enrolled in the program were reassigned to hospitals in Milwaukee to complete their nursing training, and Patterson resigned in the Fall of 1920.
After the first attempt folded, there was still concern about establishing a nursing school at UW–Madison. Charles Bardeen, MD, who was Dean of the Medical School, wrote to a friend in Chicago to ask if he could recommend a nurse to direct a nursing school. Helen Denne Schulte, RN, (still just Denne at the time) who was employed at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago was recommended. Denne Schulte felt that the school should be a part of the university with freedom to plan for nursing education without responsibility for nursing service. Both Bardeen and Robin Buerki, MD, who was the first superintendent of the Wisconsin General Hospital, supported Denne Schulte’s proposal, and the School of Nursing as we know it today was established in 1924.
At the time, the School of Nursing was organized in association with the Medical School and the brand-new State of Wisconsin General Hospital (see next page for more). Denne Schulte brought two nurses with her: Lila B. Fletcher, RN, who was responsible for nursing service in the hospital, and Christina Murray, RN, who primarily had teaching responsibilities. The initial goals of the School, stated as early as 1924 in the first School of Nursing Bulletin, were simple:
- To give adequate training in the sympathetic care of the sick.
- To promote academic education as an aid to professional experience.
- To stimulate advanced training and research in special fields of work within the realm of nursing.
Did you know…
The first course in nursing to be offered by the University of Wisconsin was in 1916 – eight years before the School of Nursing was established. The eight week course in public health nursing was cosponsored by the Extension Division of the university and the Wisconsin Anti Tuberculosis Association (now the American Lung Association) of Wisconsin. The course prepared many of the state’s public health nurses who were often the first public health nurses ever appointed in the counties they served.