Page:The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living (1909).djvu/67

 a trained nursemaid, or you can specialize on massage or cookery for the sick, or you can make a business of reading aloud to the sick. But do not imagine for one instant that among doctors you will have the same standing as the trained nurse, nor will you command the same income.

Several organizations, notably the Young Women's Christian Association in large cities, offer courses in convalescent nursing. In this course you are prepared to take the place of the trained nurse, when the patient is so close to recovery that scientific vigilance may be relaxed and mere attendance and entertainment substituted. Convalescent nurses are employed to relieve trained nurses while the latter take their daily outdoor exercises; also in some households to wait upon chronic invalids who have become fretful and captious, and who require diversion as well as light attendance. Work of this sort is secured through registries and physicians, and pays from seven to fifteen dollars a week, according to the amount of attendance and work required.

Trained nursemaids are now in great demand in the nurseries of the rich. They step into the shoes of the trained nurse, take complete charge of the new baby in the household and often assume direction of the nursery complete, order-