Memories received from our most senior Pelican

rosie Heather Collet visited Sister Ross in 2016 and these are some of the letters and memories she shared about her time as Theatre Sister in Ward 20

The full interview will be published in the 2017 Pelican Journal, The Pelican, due to be published in the Spring 2017.

Rossie passed away peacefully, on June 17, 2018, in her 109th year, after a long and contented life.

Surgical Ward Sister - 50's Style Part 1

[Names withheld at the author’s request.]

I became a Ward Sister in RIE in 1954. At that time you didn’t apply for the job – it was offered to you! I was then interviewed by the Chief Surgeon and eventually my appointment was confirmed.

The previous incumbent had already left so I was on my own. However, there were plenty of people to turn to for advice. An early memory was that there was a ward cat! I was modern; I couldn’t have a cat in a surgical ward, so one of the doctors kindly took it home.

The hours were long but in retrospect we usually seemed to be adequately staffed. The day staff covered the ward from 7.30 am to 8.30 pm. This was achieved by some staff working from 7.30 to 5 pm [or 6 pm] and some working `split shifts’ – 7.30 am to 1 pm and back at 5 pm until 8.30 pm. We had a day off once a week; a staff nurse or senior student acted as deputy so we could go off duty leaving the patients in safe hands. The night staff came on at 8.30 pm and worked until 8 am. They were given a report of the patients’ progress and had to know all their names, diagnoses and treatments.

To Sister Ross from Professor Dott

"3 Chalmers Crescent, Grange Road, Edinburgh 9

7th January 1948

Dear Sister Ross

How nice of you to write me about the C.B.E and please thank the others for their kind thoughts. I am naturally very pleased, but especially so on account of the whole team. We have all been in it together and the honour is meant as a mark of favour for what we have all helped to do.

I am very pleased too about 'Mr A' - it wasn't quite a surprise for me. He is very competent now to take this important job - we cannot keep all the eggs in one basket! He needs an important job on his own to make the best use of the second half of his act actual life. We can be proud of him for it is the best new job available so far. Mr A comes from Bristol so its nice that way too. Probably his chief ? is in the education of his family which would be easier and better in Edinburgh

EC Ross

Surgical Ward Sister - 50's Style Part 2

I became Sister in Ward 10 RIE in 1954. At that time you didn't apply for the job - it was offered to you! I was then interviewed by the Chief Surgeon and eventually my appointment was confirmed.
The previous incumbent had already left so I was on my own. However there were plenty of people to turn to for advice.
An early memory was that there was a ward cat! I was modern; I couldn't have a cat in a surgical ward, so one of the doctors kindly took it home.

The hours were long, but in retrospect we usually seemed to be adequately staffed. The Day Staff covered the Ward from 7.30 am to 8.30 pm. This was achieved by some staff working from 7.30 to 5 pm [or 6 pm] and some working 'split shifts' - 7.30 am to 1 pm and back at 5 pm until 8.30 pm. We had a 'Day Off' once week.

The night staff came on at 8.30 pm and worked until 8 am. They were given a report of the patients' progress and had to know all their names, diagnoses and treatments.
In those days the Ward Sister was 'hands on' and closely involved in patient care. After breakfast was served, Sister went round the patients to talk to them and hear how they had slept and were feeling. She checked that everything was in order - e.g. temperature charts, fluid balance charts, I.V. infusions etc. were up to date.

1964 Ward 47 Christmas Party

"1964 Christmas Concert Party in Ward 47 (Dermatology) RIE" submitted by Agnes Gill (Gilly) - January 1970 PTS

Christmas64

More than 40 years after this photograph was taken I was approached at the Pelican League AGM by lily Morris nee Smithson and asked "Are you the wee girl in the kilt?" She was one of the Sisters in t

he Dermatology Unit (Skins Wards 47 & 48) when this photograph was taken and I am the girl 3rd from the left in the front row holding a balloon.
I was 12 years old at the time with no ambition to be a nurse but did desperately want to learn the ballet version of the Skater's Waltz as that involved a pretty costume in red velvet with fur trim and a muff.
The other Sister in the unit, Helen Bradley, is also in the photograph with staff and patients from both wards.
Maybe visitors to the website can identify more people than I can!
The names I remember are Mary Gill, my mother, and Violet Klazura (Nursing Auxiliaries}, Pop Stoddart (Orderly),
Staff Nurse Wallace, ? Professor Percival and Alex Robertson, a patient.

1952 Urgent Request

Letter from a medical colleague to Rossie.

"6th July, 1952

My dear Rossie,

Could you send me at your earliest convenience or even earlier, a U shaped glass cannula of the type used for insertion into the radial artery at arrteriotomy, and with it the information about source of supply - or did we have them specially made or blown for us. Don’t tell me you get them from Young’s! I have just spent a particularly blasphemous day showing Mr. Calvert and the anaesthetist here how to do an arrteriotomy. The result was a resounding success in that the pressure stayed at 80 throughout, the brain shrank away and pratically fell down the foramen magnum, and the angioma which was the subject of attack was removed with comparative ease, but what I could not tell you about the type of needles polythene tubes and cannula that should not be used would be not worth printing (not to mention unprintable). Thanking you, as they say, in anticipation, because we have another very similar one to do shortly.