Bright Sparcs
Biographical entry
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This page supported by Richard Burbidge QC |
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Burbidge, Gwendolen Norah (Gwen) (1904 - 2000)OBE |
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Activist, Teacher and Nurse | ||
Born: 6 January 1904 Birmingham, United Kingdom. Died: 9 July 2000 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. | ||
Gwendolen Norah (Gwen) Matron, teacher, reformer, activist and advocate for nurses and nursing, Gwendolen Burbidge carved for herself a significant place in Australian nursing. She improved the conditions under which nurses work, raised the status of nursing and brought the care of infectious diseases patients into the modern era. Her work made a substantial contribution to the establishment of Australian nursing as a significant and progressive force internationally. Burbidge was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). |
Career Highlights | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gwen Burbidge commenced nursing training at Royal Melbourne Hospital, taking first place in eight of the ten requisite examinations in 1929, and receiving the Madge Kelly Memorial Prize for the best nurse in the State. In 1933 she was recruited to the Alfred Hospital as Sister Tutor, where she set up and ran a Preliminary Training School (PTS) for probationer nurses. The school opened on time, though without a single textbook. Miss Burbidge instituted programs of lectures and practical demonstrations, and persuaded the local auxiliary to adopt the School, into which equipment, English texts and a model patient (quickly named Ella Wood) were introduced. Old guard antagonism and resistance mounted as the PTS nurses reached their ranks and old ways and practitioners were pronounced inadequate, but the school won out. Miss Burbidge became Senior Sister Tutor, and in 1934 wrote the first Australian text-book on nursing, Lectures for Nurses, published and distributed Australia wide. It became the core teaching text-book of the day and during World War II it was provided to all medical orderlies in the Australian Armed Forces. In 1935 Miss Burbidge passed with credit the Victorian Teachers College teaching course and Psychology at the University of Melbourne, and embarked for London for post-graduate study. She was there appointed Assistant Matron at St Thomas's and St James's Hospitals, and Second Assistant Matron at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. She was awarded the First Class Certificate for Sister Tutors, the Sister Tutors' Diploma and the Diploma of Nursing by the University of London. In 1938 she was elected a Fellow and Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Royal Victorian College of Nursing. During the war years, Matron Burbidge was elected a member of the Royal College of Nursing of London. In 1942 she was appointed to chair a national conference to report upon the Control of Nursing in War. She was elected a member of the Nurses Registration Board of Victoria in 1944 and in 1946 was appointed by the Australian government to its Committee on Post-war Nursing Reconstruction. In 1946 she was elected the inaugural President of the National Florence Nightingale Memorial Committee of Australia, serving in that office until 1948. During this time the Committee began to focus on establishing post-basic further educational opportunities for nurses in Australia. The Committee under Miss Burbidge's leadership strongly supported the establishment of a national college of nursing. Miss Burbidge chaired a subcommittee to bring this event about. The goal was achieved in 1949 with the establishment in Melbourne of the College of Nursing, Australia. Miss Burbidge was elected a Fellow of the College and became its first Censor-in-Chief, a position she held until 1960. Miss Burbidge was Australia's representative at meetings of the Grand Council of the Florence Nightingale International Foundation in 1947, and Australia's representative to the International Congress of Nursing in Washington DC. In 1948 she was appointed to advise the Victorian Government on the formation of the Victorian Hospital Commission. In 1948 she became the first Australian nurse to receive a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, which allowed her to study nursing administration in the United States and Canada. In 1949 she was appointed Australian Representative to the International Council of Nurses and the following year received the Florence Nightingale Award for contribution to the nursing profession. In 1953 she was awarded the Queen's Coronation Medal. In 1954 she was appointed to the Nursing Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and was elected a Councillor of the Royal Victorian College of Nursing. For many years she served as the President of the Airdrie Home for Aged and Incapacitated Nurses. In 1955 Miss Burbidge was awarded the Order of the British Empire for outstanding services to nursing. In 1960 she was elected the President of the College of Nursing, Australia. Chronology
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