First nurse anesthetist

Open drop ether anesthesia
Sister mary bernard anesthesia
Mother of nurse

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Alice Magaw Kessel (1860-1928), Pioneering Nurse Anesthetist

Profiles In Nursing

She performed 14,380 procedures with no fatalities

By Claire Santos, RN, M.S., NHDP-BCMarch 25, 2019

2 min read

Around the turn of the last century, nurse anesthetist Alice Magaw and her longtime friend Edith Graham Mayo forever changed both anesthesia practice and physicians’ attitudes toward nurses who administer anesthetics.

Graham and the Mayo Brothers

Born in Ohio shortly before the Civil War, Alice Magaw grew up in Michigan and moved with her family to Rochester, Minn., in her early 20s. There, she met and befriended Edith Graham, who later became her classmate in the nursing school at Chicago Hospital for Women and Children.

When they graduated in 1889, Magaw remained in Chicago as a private duty nurse while Graham returned to Rochester and went to work at the newly established St. Marys Hospital as a nurse for surgeons Charles H. and William J. Mayo. When they graduated in 1889, Magaw remained in Chicago as a private duty nurse while Graham returned to Rochester and

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BookBooth, Christopher C.; (2005)
John Haygarth, FRS (1740--1827): A Physician of the Enlightenment unapi

ArticleA.J. Wright; (2015)
What If Beddoes & Davy Had Attempted Surgical Anesthesia In 1799? unapi

BookPöll, J. S.; (2011)
The Anaesthetist, 1890--1960: A Historical Comparative Study between Britain and Germany unapi

ChapterBurney, Ian; (2006)
Anaesthesia and the Evaluation of Surgical Risk in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Britain unapi

ArticleBause, George S.; (2009)
How American Dentists Helped Pioneer Oxygenation of General Anesthetics Worldwide unapi

ArticleKinsman, Michael;Pendleton, Courtney;Quinones-Hinojosa, Alfredo;Cohen-Gadol, Aaron A.; (2013)
Harvey Cushing's Early Experience with the Surgical Treatment of Head Trauma unapi

BookSnow, Stephanie J.; (2008)
Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World unapi

BookSnow, Stephanie J.; (2006)
Operations without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain unapi

BookVinten-Johansen, Peter; (2003)
Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine

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Paper

Saturday, July 14, 2007

This presentation is part of : Nursing History Issues

Alice Magaw: The Mother of Anesthesia

Nancy A. Harris, PhD, Anesthesia Department, University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, Iowa City, IA, USA

Learning Objective #1: list the four components of the foundation for the first advanced practice nursing: anesthesia.
Learning Objective #2: list four outcomes of Alice Magaw�s anesthesia practice on turn of the twentieth century medicine and nursing.

This study is a biography of Alice Magaw, nurse anesthetist for Dr. Charles H. and William J. Mayo, Rochester, Minnesota from 1889-1908. The purpose was to contextualize her anesthesia practice as the product of the unique environment of the turn of the twentieth century Mayo Clinic, and analyze the direct and indirect impact of her practice.

This research utilized a great person framework integrated with social history. Although the use of biography has lost some of its appeal, its use was appropriate for meeting the aims of this study. Inclusion of the social perspective strengthened