INDIANAPOLIS — After five decades, Cheryl Hansell says nursing is "light years different," but one thing has stayed the same — the letter she wrote as a graduating senior in the 1972 IU School of Nursing Class.
On Friday, IU nursing faculty, staff, students and alumni unveiled what was inside the 1972 time capsule, which was located in the entryway of the School of Nursing Building at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.
Included in the time capsule was Hansell's letter projecting what IU nursing would be like in 2022.
"I think the technology has changed everything. It's gone from handwritten paper, if you copied it it was carbon paper. There were no Xerox machines," Hansell said. "The whole concept of the nurse has changed ... nurses have so much more involvement in patient care now."
Hansell says when she started, nurses didn't have stethoscopes and couldn't draw blood or start IVs. She went on to have a 30 year nursing career before retiring.
Other items in the time capsule included:
- A nursing cap and pin
- Newspaper clippings about the school
- Photographs of nursing students in their uniforms
- School newsletters and other announcements
"I think over the next 50 years we are going to see some remarkable things that create an impact to patients, to populations [and] to healthcare," Robin Newhouse, dean of the IU School of Nursing, said. "Nurses are important to the community because they are really the backbone of the healthcare system."
Contents of the time capsule will be managed and preserved by IU archivists.
-
NASCAR hood featuring Caitlin Clark part of softball tournament silent auction
The tournament honors Matthew Alexander who was a victim in the Fed Ex mass shooting in 2021. It raises money for a scholarship awarded to a baseball player at Avon high school, where Matt played.Indiana attorney general drops suit over privacy of Ohio girl who traveled for abortion
Indiana’s attorney general has dropped a lawsuit accusing the state’s largest hospital system of violating patient privacy laws when a doctor told a newspaper that a 10-year-old Ohio girl had traveled to Indiana for an abortionPregnant women, some in labor, are turned away from ERs despite federal law
Emergency room doctors at Ascension Seton Williamson in Texas handed one woman a pamphlet on miscarriage and told her to “let nature take its course".Meet the men vying for the Golden Bachelorette's heart
Vassos, who appeared on the Golden Bachelor season with Gerry Turner, returns to the Bachelor mansion to find her match.