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Backus nursing school alumnae association turns 100

The William W. Backus Hospital has changed in the years since Dorothy L. Miller graduated from the hospital’s nursing school program in 1942. She said she recognizes only the annex part of the building from her three years studying at the school.

Among the changes Miller has witnessed is the closing of the nursing school itself, in 1972. Although the school has been gone for 36 years, its alumnae association remains active — and will celebrate its 100th anniversary Sunday.

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The nurses who belong to the group — most of them now retired — still have a major presence at the hospital through volunteer work and donations.

“They’re like visible role models,” said Karen Long, Backus vice president and chief nursing officer. “They continue to be part of health care whenever they can.”

The Alumnae Association was founded in 1908, 15 years after The William W. Backus School of Nursing opened in 1893, and today has about 120 members. About 720 nurses graduated from the school between 1893 and 1972. Only eight graduates were men.

The program was three years long, and graduating classes were small — ranging from three to 19 students each year.

In the late 1800s, most hospitals had nursing schools to attract nurses into the profession.

Today, most nurses have college degrees. Backus now works with Three Rivers Community College to train nurses, and nursing students can finish their practicum work at the hospital.

On Sunday, the Alumnae Association will mark its 100th anniversary with a celebration at the hospital and a private banquet at The Spa at Norwich Inn, where the nursing school held graduation dances.

Maintaining an active alumnae presence has been challenging because the alumnae may leave the state and pass away, association secretary Madelyn Lyman said. It also makes fundraising difficult.

But Lyman said the group enjoys staying active at the hospital.

“Backus has been very progressive; they’re constantly building and improving things over the years,” said Lyman, a 1953 graduate. “We support them as much as we can.” Lyman also recalls her years as a student in the nursing school.

Students spent six months in lectures, on subjects such as basic anatomy, chemistry and pharmacology, and did practical work — Lyman remembers practicing on a big doll named Mrs. Chase.

The students worked eight-hour days for the remainder of their education, Miller said, with only one day off per month.

“Hopefully,” Miller said, “it wasn’t a day you had classes.”

Miller, a 1942 graduate, studied treatments, such as sulfur drugs and sponging a patient with alcohol to reduce a fever, she said. Penicillin was not introduced as a treatment for fever reduction until after World War II, she said.

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Miller said she learned a simple truth about the importance of nursing when she was a student at the school: “People come to the hospital; they’re sick; you make them well; you send them home.”

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But she said she has since learned one of the most important roles a nurse can play is to teach the patient to maintain their health.

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This has helped reduce problems such as hernias, which Miller said she saw often in her earlier days as a nurse, but which have decreased since the 1960s.

“People don’t have hernias as often as they used to — they have more knowledge about it,” she said.

Medications and technology also have evolved, Miller said.

The Alumnae Association awarded scholarships to graduating Backus students every year until the nursing school closed. Today, it gives a scholarship each year to a Three Rivers Community College student who will pursue nursing. 

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The Alumnae Association also supports practicing nurses.

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Every year, it gives a savings bond to a nurse from each shift and also provides scholarships for nurses to attend national conferences, said Long, the hospital vice president.

In-kind donations also are part of the association’s efforts. It maintains the hospital chapel and occasionally donates items such as chairs and a baby bassinet, Long said. The group’s presence also is welcomed at the hospital through volunteer work, she said.

“When Ms. Miller walks around, you can tell she has a professionalism,” Long said. “(She’ll say) ‘There, why are you doing it this way?’ and ‘Don’t put that there, you know that’s not s …

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