Chapter 03: Nursing Training in Houston and at MD Anderson
Files
Loading...
Identifier
BrewerCC_20061406_C03
Publication Date
6-14-2006
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS, Oral History Interview, June 14, 2006
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Educational Path; Joining MD Anderson; Educational Path; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Influences from People and Life Experiences; The History of Health Care, Patient Care; Experiences Related to Gender, Race, Ethnicity; Overview; Patients; Patients, Treatment, Survivors; Discovery and Success; Personal Background
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Uh huh. And I headed off to Prairie View in 1968 as a freshman, and with a major in pre-nursing.
Lesley W. Brunet:
So you had to take the four year course then?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Yeah, it's the baccalaureate program. So I…
Lesley W. Brunet:
It sounds like they're vacuuming, doesn't it?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Yeah. I -- there were like four of us in -- it was about four -- there were about five guys who enrolled in the baccalaureate program at Prairie View as freshman. And the first two years of your baccalaureate program are all pre-nursing, social sciences. You know, your basic courses because your second two years are your clinical programs, and you have to come to Houston to do your clinical program. And so I enrolled in school at Prairie View, and I got a lot of encouragement at that time from different people that said, “Yeah, go to school.” [humming] So I got the encouragement from family and friends at that time. And I think that I had gotten past this ego thing about the stigma. And then when I enrolled in school at Prairie View, I used to -- we were kind of like rebels. Again, this is the first time this university has tried this with men and so I became the president of my pre-nursing program at Prairie View. And did a lot of, you know, college type of things, you know, you do as a college student. And got through the first two years, and my grades were high enough so I could -- you had to have a certain academic level to go to your clinicals. And so I matriculated from the two year program at Prairie View. And at Prairie View at that time in the '60s, you know, it was a mechanical -- pre-med and mechanical, agricultural mechanical college. But it was also heavily military dominated. So all of the freshman and sophomores, it's mandatory that you had to take military science. Yeah, you had to take a course.
Lesley W. Brunet:
In '68?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Yeah, 1968.
Lesley W. Brunet:
And what was your draft number?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Oh, well, yeah this was Vietnam era. And so we had officer's school. So a lot of these guys were getting their officer's training, and they were going off to the war, you know. But you know, every freshman male only and sophomore male, you had to take military science unless there was some medical condition that precluded that. And so it was good training, it taught you discipline; good discipline. You know, it was just like being in the military. You had a weapon assigned to you, you had your uniforms assigned to you, you had to dress up in those uniforms at least once a week on Thursdays when you go to class and go to parade. Parade meaning you had to go up on the all of the guys gather together with a thousand men and get in formation, go through formation, go through drills. Oh, yeah. And -- but it was -- I thought, looking back, it was good because it taught discipline and self-control. It taught discipline and self-control. So that's something that's deep seeded as far as a value that was taught in life even though we hated it because you were on display and you had no intent on becoming a military officer. And as for campus life, that was, you know, one of the things that kind of strikes you when you look back in life and say what things really taught you some things because it taught you how to read maps, and how to shoot (inaudible) across hills, and how to control, how to hold your weapon. Not the gun, you don't call them guns, you call them weapons. How to take it apart, put it back together without even being in the military. A lot of guys went on to the military, but the officers -- but this is an officer's training program. You know, Prairie View has one of the strongest officer's training program, it has the largest one and for black universities, for universities to train black officers. And I think it has about 10 generals now in the military. And then at that -- when I went there at Prairie View, it was the first year that they had introduced Naval ROTC at Prairie View. You know, and we just celebrated 230, I mean 130 years that Prairie View existed this past summer. And the focus was on the claims of the military department. And so they looked at the first graduates of the Naval ROTC that occurred back in I think 1970 or '71, and some of those -- and how many Admirals and top officers had came out of that initial class, and had gone on to the Navy. So Prairie View was very dominant in military science. Engineering, known for its engineering and its nursing program. And now, its biology program because the Prairie View nursing, I think the most -- I think it's the most black pre-med students.
Lesley W. Brunet:
Oh, I didn't know that.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
And so that school is very rich and the professions were very good as far as preparing us for -- in the sciences for the next step. So move -- and it got into the clinical program at Prairie View in town, and…
Lesley W. Brunet:
And did you -- you never mentioned how you paid for school. Did you get a scholarship?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Oh, no. Well, school was paid for several ways. I always worked. Since I'd already graduated from LVN school I had an LVN license. When I graduated in September, I took my lic -- in August, I took my boards in September. I just drove from Prairie View down to Austin, took my boards, passed them so I could use my LVN license then to work. So when I came to the clinical area, that's when I started working at MD Anderson. That's how I got to MD Anderson.
Lesley W. Brunet:
So is that 1970?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
1970. I came over to MD Anderson and applied for a job as a student -- as an LVN and a student nurse. So I had an LVN license, and Miss [Renilda] Hilkemeyer [oral history interview] was the Director of Nursing. And Miss [Catherine] Bane was an Assistant Associate Director who hired me.
Lesley W. Brunet:
(overlapping dialogue; inaudible) Miss Bane. Do you remember her first name?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
I forget her first name right now.
Lesley W. Brunet:
Oh, I can look it up.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
And she was very kind to me. So -- and so because they never had very many male nurses, and they hadn't had definitely not blacks. I don’t know whether, you know- --
Lesley W. Brunet:
Black male nurses?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Uh huh. I may have been the first black, male nurse that they had in this place.
Lesley W. Brunet:
I can only just remember Jimmy --
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Johnson?
Lesley W. Brunet:
-- Johnson.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Well, Jimmy came 10 years after me.
Lesley W. Brunet:
He was before or after? 10 years after.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
And so I came here in 1970, and I don't ever recall seeing a black, male nurse LVN nor RN in this place.
Lesley W. Brunet:
No RN?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
No. No. No. (break in audio) male. Definitely, you know, I definitely probably was their first black, male RN, probably the first black LVN in MD Anderson because I used my LVN license to work, and then I worked as a student nurse, since I also was a professional student nurse. And depending on which salary was the highest at that time. If they were paying a student more, then I was willing to get -- change the title to student nurse and -- or the LVN. So I did work in several capacities in the '70s as an LVN and as a student nurse while I was going to Prairie View.
Lesley W. Brunet:
And then you also had to do your practical for your clinicals?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Yeah, I worked on weekends and, you know.
Lesley W. Brunet:
Where'd you do your clinic -- your --
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Rotation?
Lesley W. Brunet:
-- Prairie View clinical?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
We did -- Prairie View clinicals were done here in the Texas Medical Center. We didn't have necessarily the same facility as Texas Woman’s University, or University of Texas, or St. Thomas, or [Bishop?] Dominick, St. -- the three year program -- the diocese down here they had a school. A three year pro -- and Baptist had a program downtown. But we had a small place, but we did our training at Ben Taub Veterans hospital.
Lesley W. Brunet:
And what was that after Ben Taub?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Well, we did all -- we did the Ben Taub, LBJ -- Jeff Davis. The old Jeff Davis hospital. We did a veteran administration hospital, we did a Methodist hospital, we did -- we trained at CF Houston for public -- for community health. And some -- and those were the primary ones that I remember. But one of the things that strikes me now is that as when I was in -- doing my clinical as a senior and one of the classes you have to take is obstetrics; OBGYN. I couldn't do my OBGYN at any other private hospital or predominantly public -- private hospital. I had to do my OBGYN in a public hospital. They would only allow me to do my --
Lesley W. Brunet:
At Ben Taub?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
At Jeff Davis cause Jeff Davis was primarily your community OB. That's where I had to do my OBGYN. So that was a little, you know, backward if you will I would say.
Lesley W. Brunet:
(inaudible).
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
But you know, but it still – it…well, it's a long story, but I had to -- I couldn't do my OB at Methodist or one of those hospitals. I had to go to -- I would let them know that, that they would not accept me as a male into the suites because of the social issues at the time.
Lesley W. Brunet:
So it was because you were a man, not because you were black?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Yeah. No, because you were male.
Lesley W. Brunet:
When did that change?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Probably in the mid…probably more and more men began to come into the profession in the mid and late '70s when the men started to get out -- the corps men started to leave the war and come back to the States. They were starting to take up nursing, more LVNs going to college to become -- you know, get their degrees and they were returning from Vietnam. A lot of corpsmen came into nursing. That was one of the routes for men to get into nursing. A lot of men came to -- come into nursing through the corps as corpsmen; medics. And then got into nursing in the '70s.
Lesley W. Brunet:
So did you just have a high number? You were never drafted?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
No, never drafted. I was never drafted. I would say I went through the whole draft process. Went to the -- every male had to register and go before the (laughter) --
Lesley W. Brunet:
And have a little exam and all that?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Right, and you get your draft number.
Lesley W. Brunet:
The stories about how unpleasant that was.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
And get your draft number, and you get your draft card, and all that stuff. And you never know when your name was going to be called. But I -- one of the things is as long as you're in school and college, you get a deferment; a college deferment. If you were especially in health care, you got an extra deferment. And so I didn’t get it. I didn't have to go to the military and the war was ending, you know, in Vietnam in the mid-'70s.
Lesley W. Brunet:
Early '70s.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Early '70s. So I did my training -- that's where I trained, in Houston. Became President of my class and some other things, and graduated, and came to MD Anderson in 1970 as a -- and then graduated -- after graduation in 1972. I started working here as a registered nurse. I passed my boards in 1972, first try in 1972. And I hired on -- I just kind of matriculated from being a student nurse to a registered nurse on -- and I worked on the head and neck unit here. The head and neck unit called Five East at that time. And at that time, the Five East was head and neck. Dr. [Richard] Jesse, Dr. [William] MacComb and all those people were the primary physicians; [Alando] Ballantyne, [Oscar] Guillemondegui, [Robert] Byers, [Marga] Sinclair.
Lesley W. Brunet:
Sorry, what was that last one after Ballantyne, before Sinclair?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Jesse. You got Jesse, MacComb --
Lesley W. Brunet:
Ballantyne.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Ballantyne, Guillemondegui.
Lesley W. Brunet:
That was the one; Guillemondegui. I don't remember that.
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Guillemondegui. G-U-I-L-L-A-M-O-D-I-G-U-I. And Byers -- no, there were a lot of doctors. I can -- I now -- going back now, I recall all of this because I came into nursing at a good time. The sciences were not that advanced, science was just beginning to take off in healthcare. And Dr. [Emil] Freireich [oral history interview] talks about the history of cancer. He -- you know, he goes back to the World War II when they used mustard gas and not chemotherapy, and how that evolved. And when I came to MD Anderson, the primary modality for treatment was surgery. So surgery was the way you would go because there was very little chemotherapy to be given. I mean so head and neck, we didn't give chemotherapy on head and neck until about the mid-80s. Your primary treatment was surgery.
Lesley W. Brunet:
They did radiation too, didn't they?
Cecil C. Brewer, RN, BSN, MS:
Yeah, radiation, yeah. Your primary mode was surgery, radiation, but not chemotherapy. Not the -- you know, and so I worked there at head and neck as a staff nurse on head and neck for a couple years. And then I became a head nurse on head and neck. And worked as head -- as nurse on head and neck for several more years, and again, there were very -- the men saturation was not there. I think I saw a second male nurse, Gary Houston, came on in about '73, something like that. And then we -- I saw a couple more men nurses come in here. They came in at administration. I can't remember all their names now, but Hugh Banks, and some other guys. So we started to see a trickle of more men in nursing here at MD Anderson in the mid-70s, but not a proliferation of them on the floors. You had a couple administration, but not on the floors. Only about two or three of us on the floors taking care of patients. And I left head and neck for a short stint where I became the head nurse on general surgery, Four West. I was asked to go to Four West to help that unit out and get it going again. So I worked with Dr. Richard Martin, [Marvin] Romsdahl, Ed White, [Charles] McBride, all of those early surgeons of MD Anderson. That's where I got my exposure to the surgical aspect of MD Anderson. [Helmuth] Goepfert was head and neck. He was a young guy back then. Plastic surgery was just on its infancy at MD Anderson. I remember the first plastic surgeons that were here, I worked with the first plastic surgeons. I worked with the -- with them as they progressed and techniques improved over the next 20 years.
Recommended Citation
Brewer, Cecil C. RN, BSN, MS and Brunet, Lesley W., "Chapter 03: Nursing Training in Houston and at MD Anderson" (2006). Interview Chapters. 899.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/899
Conditions Governing Access
Open
