When Jerri Rich, RN, settles into the office of her Sterling Heights, Mich., home to prepare to teach a first-aid or CPR class, she does so against the backdrop of nursing history. The office is a showcase for a growing collection of “nurse things.”

Collecting began with regrets of an opportunity lost. Years ago, in an Army surplus-type store, Rich said, “There was an old nurse’s uniform that had the blue cape and everything from World War II. After I left, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

The store went out of business soon after she passed up the vintage uniform and efforts since to find it have come up short. She envisions it on a mannequin in her office, a fashion statement among nursing and medical artifacts that—by her own estimate—represents a few thousand of her dollars.

“I started off with old books. I’ve got one book from the 1700s” and several from the 1800s, Rich said. “One of the really old ones, it does say, for example, that diabetes is characterized by sweet urine and is always fatal. So that was before insulin.”

Rich, 45, said she most cherishes a book dated 1898 that belonged to her grandmother. It’s an anecdotal compilation of patients’ symptoms. In reading what the patients said, “I would try to figure out what was really wrong with them,” she said.

The enthusiasm Rich carries from antique store to secondhand shop in search of history is matched by a love of education, both as a student and as an instructor.

After earning her high school diploma in an adult education program, she graduated from Oakland (Mich.) Community College’s LPN program in 1982. “I knew right then that’s not where I could stop,” she said.

She earned her RN credentials at Macomb Community College and is within a class or two of a bachelor’s degree in health services at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. She developed a nurses aide training program for local public schools and since 1995 has operated a small business, in which she teaches first aid and CPR certification classes to businesspeople, day care workers and dental staffs, among others.

“I’ve always made it a point of reading or being in school or working in different areas in a hospital just to get that experience,” said Rich, who works as a cardiac nurse for an agency. “I can pretty much drop in and out of places and feel comfortable doing whatever they need.”

One piece of her memorabilia comes from St. John Hospital and Medical Center, part of a multifacility health care system in Detroit, where Rich spent 15 years as an ER nurse. “I found one of their old cups from the ’50s, where they used to serve coffee on the trays,” she said. “It had the little St. John logo on it. I thought that was kind of cute.”

Logos provide clues to the origin and era of other items. For example, a porcelain pediatric bedpan marked 1812 is among Rich’s favorite pieces.

“About 10 years ago I was traveling, doing some reviews for the state of Michigan for their nurse training programs and I went all over Michigan,” she said. In the southern part of the state, two or three antique stores yielded old bedpans, old urinals and an alcohol burner once used to sterilize equipment.

“Then I got people looking for stuff,” Rich said. “A friend of mine gave me a set of scalpels from a World War II ship. Then a friend of my husband gave me an old syringe, an antique glass syringe, which is totally fascinating. I’m not antique, but I got shots with those as a kid.”

Glass is a large part of the predisposable world of nursing and Rich’s collection. “I have an old breast pump that’s glass,” she said. “I’d never seen one of those. I’m sure it’s from the ’50s.”

Her display cases also hold antique medical bottles. “One of them says ‘For human flesh only,’ ” the words formed in the clear glass of the specimen bottle, Rich said. Another has the word “urine” formed in the glass and a pediatric medicine bottle is impregnated with the figure of a giraffe.

Rich, who entered the profession in the era of nursing caps (and still has hers), said a complete vintage uniform remains a goal, as well as her latest quest for old nursing school pins worn on lapels. “I’ll keep looking,” she said.

Contact Phil McPeck at getpjm@aol.com.