Genealogy Chat

I received the marriage cert of my grand parents, and found that my grandmother occuptation was a surgical dresser, they were married in 1915, but i was wondering what a surgical dresser was, as far as i know she was not that well educated and all the searches i have done for surgical dresser seem to go back to a assistanct of a surgon, which i find hard to beleive - Has anyone every heard of this or any other ideas Thanks Pat

Perhaps her skills outweighed her education

Maybe, but i still cannot get my head around that, during my childhood she was very poor, and i would have thought that that was quite a skill to have, so i think it must mean something else. - Ideas would be greatly received. Thanks

Just a thought, but could it have been anything to do with wounded soldiers during ww1?

Perhaps she just did things like shaving the appropriate part of the patient's body ready for surgery.

Could be something to do with the war, think that Jeanette might have it, I wonder how i can persue this further, - its fasinating, and not what i expected from my grandmother at all - is there any records anywhere or anyone got any idea how i can find out more - thanks to eveyone Pat

I've just found this in a 1941 school magazine - think it's a private boys' school in Minehead.

"On January 1st, 1941, I left Cambridge and started my Clinical training at the evacuated Bart's. Hospital.
A good number of the patients here are air raid casualties from London. For the first three months here I was a surgical "dresser". This meant that I had half-a-dozen or more beds in a surgical ward. I had to examine the patients, discuss them with the surgeon on ward rounds, and assist at any major operation."

Janice

Patricia,

I think you are under estimating the skills that your grandmother may have had. What makes you think that she might not have been able, with a little instruction to have changed surgical dressings?

Some may not have had the stomach for it!!

Maybe your grandmother did, and could have been very useful at this time (ww1)

Found this, sounds like something to do with operations and theatre.

The teaching of junior surgical dressers in theatre and on the wards was audited in a survey organized by students over a 3-year period. The average dresser in Birmingham, England spent 5 1/2 hours per week in theatre and was scrubbed for more than half of that time. Most students found their time in theatre both instructive and enjoyable. No major differences in teaching practices were found between teaching and peripheral hospitals.