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AS nurses are assuming an increasing number of the privileges of professional workers, it follows that they will inherit many of the obligations of the independent professional practitioner. The student nurse is safeguarded in many ways while she is under the protection of the hospital and thus is exempt from responsibility in many matters of potential legal significance. It may be both pleasant and expedient to save her from disturbing situations in which there are elements of legal implication. Perhaps these same situations arise from professional misdemeanors on her part, in which case the hospital assumes the responsibility. One may seriously question how far the hospital should go in these matters. While the degree of legal responsibility is usually defined, there would seem to be a moral responsibility to prepare the nurse to accept her share of accountability in the future. If nursing is to gain a firm footing on the professional level its members must be prepared to accept the obligations as well as the privileges of professional workers. Nurses must learn under a system of proctorship what is expected of them. They will be students, with the security that our present system affords, for but a brief moment. They will be full-fledged members of the nursing profession with responsibilities and liabilities for a much longer time. Along with her coworkers in other fields the nurse realizes the need for special instruction. The Honorable William Renwick Reddell, LL.D., D.C.L., Justice of Appeal for the Province of Ontario, said at a professional meeting last year

[Certainly there can be little difference of opinion as to the fact that most nurses' records are useless, and therefore the real point of interest is why they are useless and what can be done about it. Too often the records are an expression of the opinion of the nurse and not an accurate statement of her observation of objective facts. Furthermore, the facts noted are the least essential, while the truly significant ones may be given a superficial and inadequate description.-KATHARINE TUCKEn.]

[The supervisor must check up on the work of the nurses under her, while they are at work, and when the work is completed. She should frequently inspect the charts of the patients, for each chart is not only a record of the patient's condition, and what has been done for him, but an index to the power of observation (knowledge of what facts should be reported, et cetera) of the nurses who made the record.1]

T HE use of medical records of which the nurse's clinical record is a component part is being encouraged by clinicians more than ever before. If a medical record is to be usable it must be valuable and to be valuable records must be produced by well trained workers. In medical history work both doctors and nurses are prone to take one of two attitudes. They either insist that case records be minutely complete, or they ignore to some extent the details which have an important, if indirect, bearing on the chart. The possibilities for research in the data are often overlooked by hasty recorders, and all too often we are only passively aware of the legal value of the record. We in nursing education have to face two factions when we perform the apparently simple act of teaching nurses charting and chart interpretation. The fundamentalists say that the nurse is a handmaiden of the doctor, a lowly handmaiden indeed, and that she must stay within her narrow sphere. They are willing that her record be part and parcel of the required data. It is customary, harmless, and valueless. These doctors believe that nurses need willing hands and happy hearts, but no other equipment. If we accept this theory it will be wiser to discontinue writing worthless reports. The modernist may either wish to eliminate the nurse's findings or he may demand such an elaborate record that the nurse with scant knowledge of her subject will be incapable of rendering him a satisfactory report. We should like to be, I believe, in all phases of nursing, neither in the dark depths of ignorance nor on the arid heights of medical science. In

C LINICAL charts play several important roles in hospital activities. To teachers of nurses there is none more important than the educational role for it is so intimately associated with the others. The education of the student in nursing is becoming increasingly professional in its nature for we are, in larger numbers, accepting the fact that the social consequences of the nurse's work require an early recognition of influential social factors. This realization is broadening our horizons in the many fields of nurses' endeavor. In teaching students the principles of nursing we are forced to pay more attention to the immediate than to the remote. Nursing records have such immediate importance that there has been little said about the place of the daily record in medical research. It is too early yet to say what significance nurses' records will have in research data but if we recognize our obligation to make our records as complete and accurate as possible, we can be certain that they will be awarded recognition. In utilizing the clinical record as a teaching tool, two prerequisites must be taken into consideration. The first is the preparation and attitude of the teacher, the instructor on the ward, or the head nurse. The second is the preliminary preparation of the student. The capable head nurse must have students on her service who have had a good groundwork in preliminary charting principles. In addition, she is confronted with the daily task of teaching the more highly specialized principles of nursing with the aid of charts.

I. Appearance 1. Neatness a) Internal b) External 2. Uniformity 3. Completeness II. Serial form Varies with house practice but should be stated as regulation 1. Example 2. Admission records 3. Histories a) Physical b) Personal 4. Laboratory reports 5. X-Ray reports 6. Operative records 7. Progress records 8. Treatment 9. Harrison law 10. Graphic record 11. Nurses' notes 12. Clothes list III. Arrangement of data 1. According to chart patterns a) Ward manual b) Single copies c) Separate rules 2. Routine statements 3. Specific style 4. Uniformity of arrangement IV. Clinical Content 1. Accuracy 2. Brevity 3. Elimination of a) Non-essentials b) Abbreviations c) Unfamiliar technical terms d) Diagnostic statements 4. Complete information 5. Concise statements 6. Choice of words V. Economy