how to find out. There was no literature on medical alternatives in
the university library, and no one in the medical school ever hinted
at the possibility except when the doctors took jabs at
chiropractors. Since no one else viewed the situation as I did I
started to think I might be in the wrong profession.

It also bothered me that patients were not respected, were not
people; they were considered a "case" or a "condition." I was
frequently reprimanded for wasting time talking to patients, trying
to get acquainted. The only place in the hospital where human
contact was acceptable was the psychiatric ward. So I enjoyed the
rotation to psychiatry for that reason, and decided that I would
like to make psychiatry or psychology my specialty.

By the time I finished nursing school, it was clear that the
hospital was not for me. I especially didn't like its rigid
hierarchical system, where all bowed down to the doctors. The very
first week in school we were taught that when entering a elevator,
make sure that the doctor entered first, then the intern, then the
charge nurse. Followed by, in declining order of status: graduate
nurses, third year nurses, second year nurses, first year nurses,
then nursing aids, then orderlies, then ward clerks, and only then,
the cleaning staff. No matter what the doctor said, the nurse was
supposed to do it immediately without question--a very military sort
of organization.

Nursing school wasn't all bad. I learned how to take care of all
kinds of people with every variety of illness. I demonstrated for
myself that simple nursing care could support a struggling body
through its natural healing process. But the doctor-gods tended to