Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing: Rose Muscatine Hauer: A Nursing Visionary

1959 Rose Muscatine Hauer, R.N., M.A., '37, became the first graduate to be named School Director. The School's diploma program received accreditation from the National League for Nursing.
Rose Muscatine Hauer was named director of the School of Nursing and nursing service in 1959, a time when the school was committed to programs that maximize professional competence, career mobility, and staff development. Director Hauer initiated the popular nurse refresher course, "grand rounds," the primary nurse program and the concept of the clinical nurse specialist. Ruth Schefflan, a PBISN graduate who was the School's guidance counselor at one time, recalls Rose Muscatine Hauer in those early years as always austere and very professional, crediting Rose for bringing nursing into the twentieth century.
Rose Muscatine Hauer is a nursing visionary who believes in the evolving role of the nurse, leading to advanced degrees of study. She gradually revamped the faculty, and before long nurses were the instructors of every course. Hauer recalled "I remember one of the physicians came in and said to me, "I want to know why you're changing the curriculum and why I can no longer teach obstetrics and gynecology." The accreditation by the National League for Nursing in 1959 brought forth the ruling that students could no longer provide large shares of nursing services for hospitals. This resulted in graduate nurses being hired to adequately fill the gaps left by the students. Other changes included the redistribution of clinical hours among the various specialty areas and the abolition of evening and night clinical work. Students could now be expected to remain fully awake for daytime classes. The accreditation process would see the school flourish through the tumultuous decades of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1978 , due to the foresight of Hauer and the committee on nursing education, and assisted by associate dean Helen Fausner, the Beth Israel School of Nursing became one of the first nursing schools to obtain New York State Education Department approval to transform into an institution that grants associate degrees. Affiliated colleges made it possible for students to achieve a baccalaureate degree.		Rose Muscatine Hauer
Director Hauer believes the nurse's role embraces a philosophy of care fundamentally different from a doctor. She said, "While a doctor may visit a patient sporadically, a nurse takes care of patients eight hours a day." Doctors, having no experience as nurses, could not teach aspects of care unique to nursing; for example, they knew how to deliver a baby, but did not focus upon aftercare, such as handling the emotional aspects of new motherhood and teaching all facets of caring for a newborn baby. All involve time with the patient, and most doctors don't have time.
Seymour Phillips and Rose Muscatine Hauer	Medical care took a major stride forward in the 1960s with the creation of the first coronary care unit, and nurses - perhaps for the first time - held equal footing with doctors in treating emergency patients. Arrhythmias proved to be the cause in 50% of fatalities due to myocardial infarction, and it was discovered that the fibrillating heart could be controlled with a burst of electric current through the myocardium. Trained personnel with a mobile crash cart equipped with a defibrillator and external pacemaker were having a low survival rate, because the arrested patient often was reached too late to benefit. The coronary care unit was the answer, since arrhythmias had to be recognized the moment they occurred and if they were to be treated successfully, close observation of the patient was necessary. Nurses kept vigil and were able to identify arrhythmias and treat them in a timely fashion, independent of doctors who were away from the patient's side. Nurses became collaborators with physicians instead of subordinates