Cadet Nurse Celine Mary Dye Oral History

title:

Cadet Nurse Celine Mary Dye Oral History

creator:

Dye, Celine M. (Applegate) (1926 April 11 -

subject:

USPHS Cadet Nurse Corps

description:

Celine Dye was born in Columbus, Ohio on April 11, 1926 and grew up in southern Ohio. In 1944 she graduated high school in the spring, and in the fall she joined the Cadet Nurse Corps at Mount Carmel School of Nursing. She was a student nurse there until she graduated in 1947. For five months following her graduation, her rotation was to Nichols General VA Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky as a student nurse. Because registered nurses had been serving in the military, the Cadet Nurse Corps was created to address the massive shortage of nurses in hospitals across the country by paying for the education of new nursing students and giving them tons of in-hospital experience. After her time in the Cadet Nurse Corps, Celine went into VA nursing, working in that field for 31 years at 7 different VA facilities. By the time she was ten years old, Celine had decided she would be a nurse, and the Cadet Nurse Corps gave her an unprecedented opportunity to reach that goal even faster than she'd hoped. She wanted to work with veterans because she had various family members that had served in World War I and she believed that the military was fighting to help people in World War II, so she wanted to ensure veterans got the care they deserved for their service. She was also happy to not just take care of people, but help them learn to care for themselves considering the health conditions they faced, which restores a sense of pride for each veteran. In her time as a VA nurse, they have shifted more and more towards providing care for veterans who sustained injuries in or out of the line of duty, not just direct injuries from service, which she thinks is a really positive shift for veterans and their families. She notes that treating PTSD has always been central to their work, regardless of what it was called in different eras, and she believes it hasn't been take seriously enough until quite recently. Her daughter and granddaughter have also served, and she is quite proud of both of them for it. She also believes that nurses need to enjoy their job, or else they won't be able to give their all to their patients and ensure they get the best care possible, and that sticking with something that makes them unhappy is also doing themselves a disservice. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Gill, Dennis

date:

2021-08-29

type:

Moving Image

format:

Born Digital

identifier:

1341; 2021.006

source:

Voices of Freedom Project - SWTA

language:

English

relation:

758488

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1944-1947

rights:

Unrestricted