The Nurse Who Rebuilt How New Zealand Trains Its Nurses: Mary Lambie
Mary Lambie never worked in an operating theatre. She did something that still reaches every theatre nurse in New Zealand. She rebuilt the way the country trains and registers its nurses, and then ran that system for nineteen years.
She was director of the Division of Nursing at the Department of Health from 1931 to 1950. She took the first weeks of training out of the wards, built postgraduate courses for registered nurses who wanted to specialise, and gave New Zealand nursing a voice internationally.
Record at a glance
Full name: Mary Isabel Lambie, CBE
Born: 26 October 1889 in Christchurch, the eldest of five children
Died: 22 January 1971 in Christchurch, aged 81
Trained: Christchurch Hospital, November 1910 to December 1913
Role: Director, Division of Nursing, Department of Health, 1931 to 1950
Also: Plunket nurse training in Dunedin in 1924, a one-year public health course at the University of Toronto in 1925 and 1926, and ten months of midwifery training at St Helens Hospital, Wellington
International: president of the Florence Nightingale International Foundation in 1946, first vice president of the International Council of Nurses in 1947
Honours: appointed CBE on her retirement in 1950
The doctor she never became
Lambie meant to study medicine. She passed matriculation and the preliminary examination for medical school. Then her father retired, a scholarship became the only way she could afford university, and her mother fell ill. She went home to care for her mother and her younger sisters.
A year later her mother improved, but the chance of university had gone. She chose nursing instead. In early 1909 she worked at a private hospital in Christchurch. In November 1910 she began training at Christchurch Hospital, and she qualified in December 1913.
Four years away from the work
In 1914 she was called home again, this time to nurse her dying mother. After her mother died in October that year, Lambie kept a home going for the six foster children her mother had been caring for, as well as her youngest sister and her ailing father. Her brother was killed in a shooting accident in 1916. Her father died in 1917. The foster children were withdrawn from her care in 1918.
Only then, four years out of practice, did she return to nursing.
School nursing, and the iodine work
She joined the school medical service in south Christchurch, also visiting rural schools, checking the health of primary school children and advising mothers on nutrition, cooking and sewing. She helped collect data on the extent of enlarged thyroid glands in Christchurch. That research led to the identification of iodine deficiency as an important cause of goitre, and to iodised salt being introduced throughout New Zealand.
Napier, February 1931
By 1931 Lambie held a senior post at the Department of Health and was teaching on a new postgraduate programme. In February that year, after the Hawke's Bay earthquake, she organised an emergency hospital at Napier. Later in 1931 she was appointed to succeed Jessie Bicknell as director of the Division of Nursing.
What she changed, 1931 to 1950
Moved nurse training away from purely hospital-based tuition and began a short preliminary course before ward work
Taught on, then built out, the six-month postgraduate programme begun in 1928 for registered nurses specialising in hospital administration and teaching, or in public health nursing
Worked to include maternity training in nursing courses, and fought doctors to keep midwifery training
Introduced the training of nurse aids as ancillary staff, and encouraged hospitals to employ dietitians
Developed training for dietitians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and hospital-based social workers
Chaired the committee that selected nurses for the New Zealand Army Nursing Service during the Second World War
Expanded the public health nursing service and supported the Maori Women's Health Leagues
Oversaw nursing services in Western Samoa, Niue and the Cook Islands, and served on the South Pacific Board of Health from 1945 to 1949
Why we tell this one
The parts of nursing that feel permanent were built by someone. The preliminary course, the postgraduate paper, the expectation that a nurse is taught and not simply used on the ward, all of it was argued for.
Lambie argued for it hard enough that some colleagues found her dogmatic and difficult to work with. Others, according to her biography, called her the strongest 'man' in the department. She lost her chance at medicine, carried her family for four years, came back to nursing late, and then led it for nineteen years.
About the photograph
Mary Isabel Lambie, photographed for her passport application in 1925, the year she left for the public health course in Toronto. Archives New Zealand, via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.
Where can I read more about her?
Her biography is in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography at Te Ara. Every fact in this post comes from that entry.
Thank you, Mary Lambie, for your service
Which nurse should we tell next? Tell us in the comments.
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