Serving on the WARDS

One woman reflects on the challenging world of student nursing as it existed 50 years ago

- MISHAAL KHAN

The past two years have shone a light on the dedication and commitment of nurses, and the hard work they put in on a daily basis. This week marks International Nurses' Day celebrated on the same day as Florence Nightingale's birthday, 12 May - and while, today, we see both women and men nurses, from all walks of life, it wasn't always that way.

Only a few decades ago, being a nurse was a calling considered solely for women and for Suz Evasdaughter, now 70, it was a pivotal time, where she was exposed to the grimness of death and the joy of life, and enjoyed a camaraderie with her fellow nurses. But although there have been women doctors in the UK since the 19th century, she also experienced what she felt were barriers against her as a woman in the medical field.

‘I became a student nurse in 1970, leaving Yorkshire, where I had grown up, for London, where I lived and worked at the Nursing School of Bethnal Green Hospital,’ Suz recalls. ‘I remember my induction week so clearly, watching a surgeon perform an operation. At that moment, I desperately wanted to become a doctor, but it had been drummed into me from an early age that girls served as nurses, to help, assist and care. The role of doctor was reserved solely for men.’

Ever since she’d been a young girl at home, Suz’s father hadn’t encouraged her to have an education. ‘It was part of the culture at the time. My dad would say, “You’re a lass, you’ll look after me when I’m older,”’ she says.