Ethel Mary Smith

1873-1948
St. Luke's Hospital Training School,
New York, New York, 1902

• First full-time administrative officer for the Virginia State Board of Examiners of Nurses
• Director Visiting Nurse Association of Norfolk, Virginia
• Superintendent of the Norfolk Protestant Hospital Training School

Ethel Mary Smith, elected Secretary-Treasurer and Inspector of Training Schools of the Virginia State Board of Examiners of Nurses in 1920, established the office as a full-time position and set the standard to be followed by her two successors during the next fifty years. She began a record keeping system for tracking nursing students from enrollment through licensure and renewal. Her annual reports became a much anticipated part of the annual Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia conventions and the tradition she established of reporting on Board of Nursing activities continues to this day. Her legacy to nursing in Virginia are the detailed minutes and statistics she dutifully kept while serving the Board of Nursing that are invaluable to understanding the history of nursing in Virginia.

Biography

Bibliography

"So, be it resolved, that as long as the Nursing Profession stands, that she be remembered as a leader-an ideal-by all nurses, for her unfailing loyalty, her endless interest, and her untiring efforts for advancement of the profession."

Memorial Resolution Honoring Miss Smith from District IX
of the Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia, 1948