Chapter 111 h's Hospital- Our C ose Associate The Sisters of Mercy Begin The history of St. Joseph's Memorial Hospital is inextricably bound to the

"St. Joe's " the close bonds between the hospital and the medical school have existed since the inception of the Creighton Medical College in 1892. But the hospital predates the medical school by a good twenty-two years, twenty-two eventful formative years for Omaha medicine. As Michael P. Dowling, S.J., one of the earliest and most highly regarded Presidents of Creighton University, stated, "On its own account, as well as because of its close connection with Creighton Medical College, St. Joseph's Hospital deserves more than passing notice."' The general conditions of hospitals and nursing in the last half of the 19th century were hardly better than those of medical education and the practice of medicine. In the public mind, hospitals were places for paupers to go to die. If one had money or family or both, it was considered proper to either be nursed to health or allowed to die at home. Further, the existence of public "pest houses " tended to confirm this ingrained prejudice. These institutions, where nurses were inmates or paupers themselves seemed to exist first as places of confinement, and secondly as givers of medical attention