Three Programs

At its inception, Harlem School for Nursing offered a two and a half year program. Shortly following the first graduating classâ successful completion of the course the School instituted a standard three year curriculum consisting primarily of hands-on clinical experience based training. Most of the black nurses in Harlem received their degrees as registered nurses through schools for nursing, such as the one offered at Harlem Hospital, until the second world war.

With the war several nurses, including those graduates of the Harlem Hospital School for Nursing, were needed overseas to aid in the treatment of field injuries from the various battles of the war. The war created a great shortage of qualified registered nurses back home in the states. In response to the need a shorter program, separate from that for registered nursing, was instigated to bring greater numbers of medically minded personnel into the short-staffed hospitals. This two year, associate degree program set in the college atmosphere, helped fill the void left by the war. Practical nurses, nurses completing the two year associate degree program, served to assist registered nurses in the hospitals and community clinics. Their duties included the weighing of patients and other less specialized tasks.

In the early 1950âs full registered nurse collegiate programs began replacing schools of nursing. The training offered on these college campuses included text book medical information, a certain amount of clinical experience, and some humanity courses. Several registered nurses who went through schools of nursing for their degree, entered into these college degree programs simply in an effort to gain the emerging added respectability of collegiate experience within nursing.

All three avenues, the two programs for registered nursing and the one for practical nursing, simply provided their students with the training necessary to practice. To become a licensed nurse at any level an additional test, the state license exam, was a necessary step. The course prepared nurses in training with the medical knowledge necessary to practice, taking and passing the state test chronologically followed the successful completion of the respected course and was the last step in obtaining a medical license.