The 2018 Couriers served a vast number of Appalachian community members through their summer of working in clinics and nonprofits. We are pleased to share with you a glimpse of their summer projects and service below: Molly Craig Molly Craig served with Kentucky Mountain Health Alliance (Little Flower Clinic) and Bluegrass Care Navigators. For her community project, she worked with a local practitioner to conduct a seminar on combating opioid addiction for inmates at the Leslie County … [Read more...]
The History of Nursing
At its very core, nursing has been around for centuries, although the profession of nursing started at the height of the Roman Empire, around 300 A.D. The Empire wanted to place a hospital within every town under its rule. Nurses were needed to assist doctors in caring for patients in the newly-erected hospitals. Modern Nursing Born in the Middle Ages During the Middle Ages, the nursing industry became infused with religion, with most nurses being nuns or monks. The early hospitals during … [Read more...]
Q&A with New Wendover Operations Manager Debra Turner
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) has hired a new Operations Manager for the Wendover Bed & Breakfast and Retreat Center. Wendover served as the headquarters of the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in the 1920s. The signature feature of the Wendover property is the Big House, originally built as a two-story log home for Frontier founder Mary Breckinridge. The Wendover property also includes several other buildings that house guest rooms and retreat or meeting spaces. Steeped in the rich … [Read more...]
Courier Spotlight: Sally Hamby
Northeastern native Sally Hamby was inspired as a teenager to serve as a Courier with Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). At age 23, after graduating college, Sally finally got her chance. In the fall of 1974 she headed from Washington, D.C. to Kentucky, a foreign state and a foreign culture. Sally was stationed at Flat Creek, an outpost center at FNS, for the majority of her time as a Courier. There she worked with Sue (Brezec) Krech, who was just 22 at the time and the only nurse-midwife on … [Read more...]
Courier Spotlight: Laura Lee Parrish
Laura Lee Parrish’s life transformed when she went from farmgirl to Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) Courier in 1970. A Bourbon County, Ky. native, Laura was familiar with FNS when she began her journey 130 miles southeast to Leslie County. Little did she know how much of an impact the experience would have on her. According to Laura, she always had a desire to serve the Eastern Kentucky community. However, having grown up very simply on a farm, she was unsure of her abilities to help when she … [Read more...]
FNU Hosts “Call the Midwife” Screening Event for Season 7 Premiere
For the sixth consecutive year, Frontier Nursing University hosted free a reception and screening event of the hit PBS show, “Call the Midwife,” Season 7 on March 22, 2018. The PBS drama “Call the Midwife” follows the nurses, midwives and nuns from Nonnatus House, who visit the expectant mothers of the deprived Poplar district of London's desperately poor East End, providing the poorest women with the best possible care. Season 7 premiered on PBS on March 15, 2018. Frontier Nursing … [Read more...]
Courier Spotlight: Florence Booker Rawleigh
The late Florence Booker Rawleigh claimed that working for the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) as a Courier was the most interesting thing she did in her 95 years of life. Florence was asked to serve as a Courier during a flu outbreak 1942. During the epidemic, many prominent families in the area were asked to send their children to volunteer with FNS to tend to those ill from the flu in rural and underserved Appalachia. “They would call and say they need you desperately, ” said Florence. … [Read more...]
Courier Spotlight: Wendy Parker-Wood
When Wendy Parker-Wood’s family visited the Big House at the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) grounds, Wendy knew it was a place she wanted to be. The then 12-year-old Wendy was fascinated by the stories her mother told of volunteering as a Christmas secretary at FNS in the 1930s, and she felt a strong connection to the work the Couriers did there. In her senior year of high school in 1966, Wendy traveled to Wendover to participate in the Courier Program. She rode horses, grocery shopped for … [Read more...]
