The following is a transcription from the July/August 1961 edition of The Lamplighter, a monthly magazine published by the patients of the Oregon State Hospital. The article addresses the the Patients as Nurses or P.A.N. program.
PAN
This three-letter title is highly meaningful at O.S.H. It is an appropriate title of an important phase of our Industrial Therapy.
P.A.N. is less than two years young. It had its inception in January 1960.
Enroll for the class yourself and find out just what it means.
You can really become a needed, if not indispensable, person during your stay as a patient at O.S.H.
The red and white P.A.N. on the gray uniforms signifies that a man or woman has successfully completed a four weeks’ course in care of sick patients.
Patients able and willing to assist aides and nurses may now have the privilege of getting all the “know-how.”
You can equip yourself with new skills and techniques. You can learn how to best give of your time and services. At the completion of your course, you find yourself able to skillfully give a three-minute back rub; you can lift without hurting your back; and you can give tender, loving care (T.L.C.) to folks whose afflictions make your own small problems so tiny that you can see them only with the aid of a microscope.
You daily live your learnings many times over while yet a patient. Best of all, you can take your new learnings back home — or your experience will help materially in getting a paying job on the outside.
From May 2 – May 26, ten patients spent four hours daily learning know-how and performing the actual tasks required in caring for ill people.
On May 26, ten patients received their red and white P.A.N. insignia for their gray jumper uniforms. Appropriately, there were colorful and impressive graduation exercises to which all friends and relatives were invited. So new is the program that few came, though many were invited.
The class and friends enjoyed the beautiful reception at the Student Nurses’ Home. It was truly a commencement day since all ten graduates voluntarily signed with Miss Cutsforth for real assistance four hours daily or more. They had some choice, but, of course, all went to wards having bed patients.
There are too few P.A.N.’s — there are patients willing and eager to learn and to profit daily by what they have learned. If you are one of these, ask your ward doctor to let you enroll in P.A.N. — you can do it!! In fact, it could be the “Can-do” as well as the P.A.N.
A class for men finished in June. A class for women is scheduled in July.
