WEBVTT

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[This tape was transfered from a 16mm film original by Colorlab for the National Library of Medicine,

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September 2007, NLM call number HF 5807]

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[U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service]

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[The Division of Indian Health presents]

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[Career]

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[Narrator:] This is the story of an opportunity offered to the daughters of the Navajo, Cherokee,

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Choctaw, Seneca, to the Pueblo people, the Sioux, Winnebago, Apache, to all the Indian peoples.

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The story of an unusual school.

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Each year 80 young Indian girls enroll in the practical nurse school in Albuquerque.

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They come to build a career for themselves and to learn to serve the cause of health

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among their people.

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They come from many tribes and many parts of the country.

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From Oklahoma, Lita Mae Gumbai.

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[Lita Mae Gumbai:] When they told me at Haskell Institute about the practical nursing school,

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I really wanted to go.

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My parents were so pleased.

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[Narrator:] Norma Marie Ahiti.

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[Norma Marie Ahiti:] I am smiling here in this picture taken at the school, but I was a little frightened,

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I think, when packing to come.

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[Narrator:] From New Mexico, Elsie Curlee.

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[Elsie Curlee:] Our high school guidance teacher told us about the school.

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[Narrator:] Harriet St. Clair's mother is a practical nurse.

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Laurice Bohannon had two sisters at the practical nurse school before her.

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Three cousins came together from Laguna.

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[Della Davis:] Della Davis.

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[Isabel Gaistein:] Isabel Gaistein.

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[Violet Sophski:] Violet Sophski.

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[Narrator:] Laverna Cucka of Arizona had always wanted to be a nurse,

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and so had Rose Gomez of Taos.

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[Rose Gomez:] I saw the good care the nurses gave in the hospital.

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It made me want to help people that way too, especially the children.

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[Narrator:] Nancy Cohawk came from Minnesota.

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Laverna High Hawk and Georgia Anne Eagle came from South Dakota.

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Janice Armstrong came the greatest distance, all the way from New York State.

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Classes begin at the school in August and February each year.

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Many students are brought by their family.

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Others come by train.

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Joe Heron meets them with the school car.

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On arrival, Lita Mae Gumbai and Harriet St. Clair stop to look at the school sign.

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They didn't quite know what to expect.

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The first day was a busy one.

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There were roommates to get acquainted with.

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Lita Mae meets hers, Cecelia Mirabal from Taos.

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With unpacking to do, getting settled, receiving uniforms, trying them on for the first time.

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There were the teachers to meet, the school to see,

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and that night a letter to write home.

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[Lita Mae Gumbai:] Dear Mother, our school being next door to the Indian boarding school,

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there isn't time to be homesick.

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It is a big and friendly campus.

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A church is just across the street.

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We have a cat here named Professor.

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[Narrator:] There is a great deal to learn, to do, to think about and understand.

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Anatomy, the organs of the body, and the bones of the body.

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The patient's skeleton here surrounded is Oscar Gerard Albuquerque, a favorite of the girls.

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The words are difficult as Miss Mirabal discovers.

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Students learn how to make hospital beds, how to read a thermometer, and take temperatures,

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pulse, and respiration.

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They learn about diets and how to serve food to bed patients.

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How to take blood pressures.

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The combined class and demonstration room lets some students watch while others practice.

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Sometimes on each other,

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as here with Lita Mae, learning how to get a patient out of bed and into a wheelchair.

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Sometimes they practice with dolls.

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They call them Mr. and Mrs. Chase, for the manufacturer who makes them.

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Students also go to the Albuquerque sanatorium for a first look at what is ahead.

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Here their pink uniforms are covered with a protective hospital gown, and they wear masks

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over nose and mouth.

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Time now to use what they have learned for real people, really ill, to feel needed and appreciated.

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Back in classes at the school, questions are sometimes easy,

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and everyone knows the answers.

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Sometimes not so easy, and no one knows, but there are teachers and books to help.

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It isn't all work, of course.

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The chuck wagon is a popular interruption to classes.

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Twice a day everyone flocks outside.

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There's plenty of time for play, picnics and cookouts, hotdogs and watermelon.

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Regular meals are taken across the campus in the big cafeteria with the boarding school students.

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Sports are popular after class.

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Strenuous tennis.

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Less strenuous croquet.

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Archery is a favorite, naturally.

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Pull.

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Bull's-eye. Twice.

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There's time for dancing with each other on the school porch and for dancing with their dates,

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perhaps from the boarding school.

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Teas and parties are learning time as well as fun.

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How to set the table, how to serve, and to meet guests.

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Here one of the doctors is a guest.

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Cards are played some free evenings and music others.

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Television in the upstairs living room is a favorite.

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And getting to know each other is probably best of all.

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Exchanging confidences,

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showing pictures in each other's rooms at night,

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getting to know all about each other.

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[Leta Mae Gumbai:] Some of us who are city girls had never seen a reservation.

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Elsie Curlee showed me what a hogan is like.

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Now I am anxious to visit one.

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[Speaker 1:] I showed some of my Navajo paintings too.

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They liked them.

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They're beautiful.

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[Girls:] How pretty!

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[Speaker 2:] This is the way my people paint.

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Apache art shows much action.

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[Laverna Cucka:] The Hopis are the ones that make Kachina dolls.

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See, this is a mudhead, one of our clowns.

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[Speaker 3:] Do you like the pottery we make, in our pueblo?

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[Girls:] Very much. Very much.

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[Speaker 3:] My grandmother Maria made this.

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[Narrator:] Other arts are exhibited also.

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Miss Curlee shows how to make fry bread, and boyfriends and dates are discussed.

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They chatter and giggle and have a fine time.

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They become fast friends.

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On Saturdays they go shopping, and to church on Sundays.

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Letters home now are full of news.

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[Lita Mae Gumbai:] Albuquerque is a busy city with busy streets, but it has quiet places, too.

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The state university is here.

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At sundown, Sandia Mountains to the east turn as pink as our uniforms.

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[Narrator:] The storied Santa Fe is nearby.

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The girls have opportunities to visit.

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Graduate practical nurses serve at the Indian hospital at Santa Fe.

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Many of the most famous southwestern pueblos are only a few hours from Albuquerque:

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Taos,

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San Ildefonso, home of the famous black pottery,

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old Santa Ana,

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Zuni, noted for its silversmiths

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and its waffle gardens,

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old Acoma in the sky,

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Ariabe.

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Many of these are home to some of the students, and they delight in showing them to their friends

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who come from far away.

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This is fabulous country, truly.

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The land of the seven cities of Cibola, the ancient civilizations, and the wonders of nature.

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Gallup, where the inter-tribal ceremonials are held each July, is only half a day away.

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So many things to see, but after the weekend's sightseeing and fun,

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back to books and classrooms, for examinations will be coming soon.

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Names and grades are posted, and the girls crowd around to look for their marks.

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At the end of four months, the successful students receive their caps.

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Probation is over.

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Now, indeed, there is news to write home, for Lita Mae, Norma Marie, Rose Gomez,

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and the others will leave the school for a while to go out for clinical and public health experience,

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working under supervision of registered nurses in the Indian Health Program.

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Some will go to the Albuquerque sanatorium, already familiar.

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Others, the majority, will go to the Navajo reservation.

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Here they will serve the seven months at the Navajo Medical Center.

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They will live in the nurses' home.

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They have their own counselor and teacher, for here also they go to school,

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but there is a difference.

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They study now the care and problems affecting actual individual patients.

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No longer practice. This is real.

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Each has certain patients of her own to care for.

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The elderly,

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the newborn--a favorite assignment--

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mother and baby together,

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the restless youngsters in pediatrics.

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Small problems sometimes present themselves.

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[Lita Mae Gumbai:] The first time I was to give bed baths, my patient hid under her bed,

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but after I coaxed her out, she didn't mind her bath at all.

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[Narrator:] Student nurses learn here to give tender, considerate care.

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They keep charts for their patients as the registered nurses do.

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They prepare formulas.

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They confer with the dietitian.

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They help in preparing for surgery.

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Rose Gomez here is making up the surgical bed.

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They get the supplies necessary for the operations.

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They observe in the operating room amphitheater during surgery.

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Sometimes they assist at the scrub table.

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The crowded waiting room on clinic days keeps them busy as they assist doctors and nurses,

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acting as interpreters sometimes when there is a language difficulty.

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Taking the patient's history.

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Explaining about medicines and doctor's directions.

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Practical nurse students also learn to assist the public health nurses,

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making home visits on the Navajo reservation.

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They assist in treating patients and demonstrating proper baby care.

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They show how to bathe a baby with oil instead of the precious water so scarce on the reservation.

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In visits to these widely scattered hogans on the vast reservation, which little Ms. Gumbai could not

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even imagine short months ago, the practical nurse student comes to know its people...

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its summer aspects,

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its winter face.

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Students also assist public health nurses in Indian health clinics at the pueblos.

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Here Laverna High Hawk aids public health nurse Tua at Santa Ana, talking with patient Joe Garcia.

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She confers with the mothers and helps weigh the baby.

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Student days are full.

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They go fast.

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Four months of classwork.

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Seven months' practical experience.

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Now nearly time for graduation, the girls go back to the Albuquerque school

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for a final review of studies.

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Teachers make their final reports and evaluations, consideration for each girl's record.

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There are state board examinations to take to secure their license to practice.

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There are happy jokes.

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Graduation invitations to send proudly home to parents.

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Graduation uniforms to admire, and finally the great day.

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[Speaker 4:] Graduation day.

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We are different today.

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When I came, I wouldn't have thought anything could be finer than our pink uniforms,

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but oh, the whites!

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[Narrator:] The whites, symbolic of all they have been waiting and working for.

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Families gather from near and far.

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Grandmother Maria.

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The chief nurse officer of the United States Public Health Service arrives to address the girls.

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The chief nurse of the Indian Health Service is there from Washington.

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The doctors come also to wish them well.

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Outside the auditorium the crowd grows.

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Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters from Dakota, Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota.

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Inside, the Indian school band tunes up, and suddenly it's time.

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In double line they march across the familiar campus to the auditorium

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where the exercises will be held.

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[Music]

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[The new nurses march across the courtyard.]

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[Music]

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The chief nurse officer tells them...

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[Chief Nurse:] I pray for each of you the reward of deep satisfaction which comes only to a nurse:

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the satisfaction of a child healed, a troubled spirit comforted, a death rate lowered,

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a new way of health succeeding.

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[Narrator:] And as they listen, they're thinking big thoughts.

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[Laverna Cucka:] This is an important day.

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I am excited about it and what is coming.

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[Harriet St. Clair:] I wonder who my first patient will be.

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[Elsie Curlee:] It didn't seem possible that today would ever come.

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My, I feel so proud.

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I know my mother is, too.

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[Narrator:] Miss Cucka rises to give the class response.

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[Laverna Cucka:] During our year at the Indian School of Practical Nursing,

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we have had the opportunity to learn our chosen profession.

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For many of us it has been a lifelong desire, for we know that as a licensed practical nurse,

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we can serve our Indian people and assist in improving their health.

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[Narrator:] There are certificates and pins and congratulations.

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And then they are graduates, and tomorrow is ahead.

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They are eligible to serve as graduate licensed practical nurses in any state in the union

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and in any hospital.

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Many will serve by choice in Indian hospitals or field assignments throughout the West,

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to help add health and knowledge of the gentle art of healing to the other arts and treasures of their people.

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But even as these graduates leave, a new class is coming in.

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Would you like to join them?

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This is your invitation.

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[The End

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[Music]