Next summer, Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta will mark its 100th birthday. As part of the celebration, a reunion is planned for graduates of the hospital's now-defunct diploma nursing program.
Piedmont's program, which operated from 1905-1983, once was one of about five diploma nursing programs in metro Atlanta, said 1977 graduate Tony Smith. Today, Smith is still at the hospital from which he graduated; he's a service line administrator, overseeing orthopedics and neurology services, and also is director of alumni services.
Diploma nursing programs - along with associate programs and bachelor's degrees - were just one way nurses could receive their education.The Piedmont Hospital School of Nursing was a typical hospital-based three-year diploma school.
In the 1970s, the American Nurses Association began the effort to close diploma schools, Smith said.
"Their belief was that nursing education should be moved into the collegiate setting to empower nurses and to provide a more well-rounded educational base," he said.
The bachelor's of science degree became the entry-level standard for nurses. Diploma programs were phased out during the 1980s and 1990s and are no longer available in the state. Atlanta's last diploma program, at Georgia Baptist Hospital, closed in the early 1990s.
Piedmont's program, which produced about 2,000 nurses during its 78-year history, was rigorous.
"I remember vividly that [the diploma program] was a very structured, very strict environment for learning," Smith said.
Students took a full course load at Georgia State University and clinical instruction at the hospital. That included working in every department in the hospital, from working in the OR to delivering babies.
The majority of nurses in the program were women. They lived at the hospital in a dormitory that is now the education building at Piedmont. Smith, one of the few male nursing students in the program, lived off campus.
Deborah Leamon, a 1974 graduate and now an operating room nurse at Piedmont, remembers a strict environment for learning; but she also recalled the large suites she shared with three other students, the low student-to-teacher ratio and the support of the physicians.
The intensity of the program, both graduates said, helped them in their careers.
"We had to go through the operating room in scrubs, and got to be a part of the surgery," Leamon said. That experience fostered her lifelong love of the operating room.
Today, many nursing students don't get that type of hands-on clinical experience "unless they pursue an internship," Leamon said.
The seriousness of the program was underscored by the grading scale.
"The grading standard was also strict - if you made below an 83 [percent] you were out for the whole year. You would have to go back into the program the next year and try again," Leamon said.
The school also oversaw nursing students' social schedules, Leamon said.
"If you decided to get married while you were in nursing school, you were interviewed by the director of the school of nursing, and your fiancé had to understand your commitment to the program," she said. "That was the only way you were allowed to live off campus."
Leamon said her social life was limited - she went home on weekends, returning to school late Sunday nights.
When she graduated, Leamon went to the Medical College of Georgia to receive her BSN; the program gave her academic credit toward her bachelor's degree.
According to hospital records, there were just five students who entered Piedmont's inaugural nursing class in 1905. They ranged in age from 19 to 29 and were selected for the program on the basis of character, maturity and previous medical experience.
Nursing students worked at the hospital during the day and participated in evening classes taught by Piedmont physicians. At first, students lived at a home across the street from the hospital - then called Amster Sanatorium - at 267 Capitol Ave.
In 1957, the nursing school campus was moved to the sixth floor of the Piedmont Hospital site on Peachtree Road, and relocated again in 1962 when construction was completed on a new building. That facility housed 200 student residences, classrooms and laboratories.
Reunion activities for nursing school alumni are scheduled for June 10-12, 2005, at the Sheraton Midtown Atlanta Hotel at Colony Square.
To register for the nursing school reunion and centennial anniversary celebration, contact Smith at 404-605-3404 or tony.smith@piedmont.org.