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20 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com June 15–July 27, 2020 PROFILES IN NURSING by Aaron Severson T o her admirers, "Sister Kenny" was a crusader, chal- lenging a reactionary medical establishment's pre- conceptions about one of her era's most feared dis- eases. To many physicians, she was a dangerous, ignorant quack. The real story of Sister Elizabeth Kenny is even more remarkable than the Hollywood movie it later became. Unregistered Nurse Today, any nurse who rises to international prominence usu- ally has a lengthy list of degrees and certifications. Elizabeth Kenny never even attended high school and had little or no formal training as a nurse. (At various times, she offered con- tradictory accounts of her training, none of them verifiable.) Kenny was born in Warialda, in the Australian state of New South Wales. Her family subsequently moved to Nobby, a small town in southern Queensland. According to Kenny, she began her nursing career there while still a teenager, working as an unpaid "bush nurse" for rural patients. Her mentor was Aeneas McDonnell, a surgeon in the city of Toowoomba with whom she would sometimes consult by telegraph. Queensland introduced nursing registration in 1912, but Kenny never became a registered nurse. That didn't stop her from practicing professionally, sometimes with McDonnell vouching for her. From 1913 to 1915, she even ran her own small hospital. Despite her lack of credentials, Kenny enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) in 1915, become a staff nurse (equivalent to a second lieutenant). She was later promoted to sister, a rank equivalent to a first lieu- tenant. Although her later stories of being wounded by shrapnel on special assignment in France aren't substantiat- ed by her military records, much of her service was as a transport nurse on ships returning wounded soldiers to Australia, perilous duty in itself. After her discharge in 1919, Kenny returned to Nobby and worked as a home health nurse, still calling herself "sister" (then a common honorific for trained nurses in British Commonwealth countries). She also tried her hand as an inventor, patenting a novel type of ambulance stretcher in 1927. Sister Kenny vs. Polio In 1932, Kenny turned her attention to infantile paralysis, a viral infection more properly known as paralytic poliomyelitis. Even today, polio is incurable. Although only a small per- centage of cases are symptomatic, the disease is highly con- tagious in unvaccinated populations and its effects can be devastating, potentially including temporary or permanent paralysis and even death. Over the years, Kenny developed her own ideas about polio and how to treat it. Most contemporary doctors rec- ommended immobilizing paralyzed limbs, which could leave patients bedridden or confined to heavy, cumbersome braces. Kenny argued that a regimen of hot compresses, stretching, massage and assisted exercise could reduce pain and even restore patients' mobility. Sister Elizabeth Kenny (1880–1952) This controversial Australian nurse reshaped polio treatment EARNING HER STRIPES Sister Elizabeth Kenny in her Australian Army Nursing Service uniform, circa 1917. The title "sister" did not signify a religious affiliation, but rather a military rank equivalent to first lieutenant. Photo: Australian Country Hospital Heritage Association