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The Alexian Brothers are a Catholic order with a long
association with nursing and the care of the sick. Although
they meant well, their nursing skills did not keep up
with the changing role of nurses in the first part of
the 20th century. Brother Sebastian Brogan (1883-?)
entered the Alexian Brothers Hospital School of Nursing
in Chicago in 1920. He later described the school of
nursing as being "one in name only."
Almost all of what the students learned about nursing
was through their duties in the hospital. Brogan's criticism
could have been applied to a large number of nursing
schools at that time. Nursing students in the hospitals
not only had raised standards of care, but also made
money for the hospitals, leading to a rapid increase
in the number of schools, which totaled well more than
1,000 by 1920. Hospitals with as few as 25 beds established
nursing schools, and many training schools sent their
students out as private duty nurses to make money for
the hospital. Many of the more serious abuses were lessened
by the establishment of nursing registration and the
accreditation of nursing schools, which was just beginning
to have a serious effect in the 1920s.
Brogan, appointed director of the Alexian Brothers
school in 1924, was determined that the school would
at least meet state standards. The first step was to
have the graduates certified as registered nurses and,
in 1925, he persuaded the State Board of Nurses in Illinois
to let the graduates of the school sit for an examination.
Brogan took the state boards in May 1925, passed and
became an RN.
Because he strongly believed that nursing needed more
men (and almost all the hospital schools refused to
accept male students), he encouraged both laity as well
as clergy to train as nurses in the Alexian Brothers
school. Between 1925 and 1927, about 19 brothers followed
his example to become RNs. Many of the lay students,
however, complained about Brogan's high expectations
and left to find easier schools. Still, the number of
graduates slowly grew.
Discouraged by the criticism, in 1929, Brogan resigned
as director. Still the visionary, he advised the nursing
school to affiliate with Loyola University to raise
the quality of the order's nurses (when only a handful
of schools had a university affiliation). Brogan was
affiliated with the Alexian Brothers in St. Louis for
a short time, but in 1930 he left the order, and the
Alexian Brothers have no record of what happened to
him.
Brogan is important for emphasizing in his own way
that men do have an important role to play in American
nursing.
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