Army Nurse Corps Training

Army Nurse Corps Training. Former Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Until the early 20th century, the Army largely relied on untrained civilian women for temporary medical care for the sick and wounded. Shortages in medical staff set the stage for greater involvement of women in Army medical care and made a compelling case for a permanent nurses' training program within the Army., The creation of nurses' training program coincided with the international suffrage movement, as women were gaining more freedom in both their professional and personal lives. A bill enacted in 1901 formally established the Army Nurse Corps, and on June 21, 1911, the first nurses were permanently assigned to Walter Reed General Hospital; the first Nurses' Quarters was constructed that year. At the insistence of administrators who required training for nurses headed to field hospitals and camps, part of the Walter Reed General Hospital was allocated for the Army School of Nursing in 1918. The school constituted the first federally subsidized medical education in the country. The entire school was eventually housed there and continued until its closure in 1931. The second Nurses' Quarters, Delano Hall, was constructed in 1929 and was named for Jane Delano, the second superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps., More than three decades after the closure of the Army School of Nursing; in 1964 Delano Hall became the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing (WRAIN), which continued the tradition of nurse education and training on the Walter Reed campus. WRAIN commissioned its last officer in 1978.