What would it be like to see 60 years into the future? Thirteen members of the Grand View Hospital School of Nursing Classes of 1963 and ’73 had the chance to do just that last week when they reunited inside the new Pavilion at Grand View Health.
As they gathered in the main lobby, the women reviewed a few historic photos. One, labeled “lab class 1960,” depicted a group of students standing at a laboratory bench and working with test tubes.
“We could tell by their uniforms that these nurses were still in their probationary period, which meant they were in their first six months of study,” one of the women said.
After sharing some more memories, the women met up with Mark Horne, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; Jillian Laudenslager, BSN, RN, CNOR, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer; and Fallon Every, Development Specialist. Together, they toured the new Pavilion, located on the exact spot where the nursing school once stood. They marveled at the new robotic operating room, the technology in the patient “smart” rooms and the rooftop helipad as they got a firsthand look at how far healthcare has come over the last six decades.
Said one of the women, “I wish I was a nurse graduating this year so I could work in the new Pavilion.”
Grand View’s first student nurse in training started in 1913, the same year that the hospital was established. The school on Lawn Avenue opened in 1951. From then until its closing in 1975, the school trained 541 nursing students. Most of them became nurses at the hospital.
The building that housed the school, known as the Nurses’ Home, was raised in October 2020 to make way for the Pavilion. A depiction of the Nurses’ Home, painted by Perkasie artist Margaret Wisehart Anderson, is displayed in the West building of the hospital.
Learn more about The Pavilion at Grand View Health.