Remembering Cherry Ames: Fictional Healthcare Heroine

NursingNurses

May 10

Written By

Originally published back in 2009, and a visitor favorite, we're re-posting our nostalgic remembrance of Cherry Ames for your reading pleasure this National Nurses Week, 2012. Enjoy!

Cherry Ames Army Nurse by Helen Wells — Cherry Ames, R.N.

There was no one quite like Cherry Ames - at least not to those of us who, as adolescents and teenagers, dreamed of being nurses during the era from 1943 into the 1970s. The lively pink-cheeked, dark haired young nurse was the star of the Cherry Ames series of books authored by the prolific Helen Wells. Her sleuthing healthcare heroine traveled from hometown America to exotic locales including jungles, army bases, and anywhere else her enthusiastic bedside manner and crisp white cap were needed. Though I don't recall the details of every one of the series' many volumes, I am relatively certain that the patients all lived, the mysteries were all unraveled, and that Cherry always returned home unscathed by tropical illnesses, war wounds or salacious surgeons. That girl knew how to get the job done right, and move straight on to the next highly-specialized nursing assignment - and there were plenty of them!

As an assessment of my own professional skills, I decided to look back over my nursing career and see just how many nursing specialities Cherry and I had in common. After all, we're both Illinois natives who kind of grew up around the same time! The results were interesting - and maybe even motivational:

Nurses I HAVE been:

Student Nurse
Visiting Nurse
Veterans' Nurse
Senior Nurse
Private Duty Nurse

Nurses I HAVE NOT been:

Army Nurse
Chief Nurse
Flight Nurse (though I desperately wanted to enlist as a nurse in the Air Force during the Viet Nam era - but my father, a combat veteran, put his foot down on that notion)
Cruise Nurse
Boarding School Nurse
Department Store Nurse

More nurses I HAVE NOT been - yet!