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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Sister Rita Carmen Bergamini 
December 12, 1980 
Cassette 2, Side 1 
 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  00:02 
Okay, Sister Rita Bergamini, interviewed by Susan Ehlers for Washington Women's Heritage 
Project, December 12, 1980. Tape two, side one. Okay, uh, let's finish the story about Mother 
Joseph.  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  00:21 
Right. [wrap up this little story?]. Everybody knew Mother Joseph, and they called her The Old 
Mother. So-- and they always had another way of raising funds was bazaars. And they were 
always ecumenical, you know, any faith, any creed, anybody helped work with the Sisters of 
Providence, like the Ladies of Charity down at Vancouver, that hospital. There came Jewish, 
Protestant, and everybody helped. They're having this big bazaar. And one fellow down in the 
Dalles, down in Oregon, wanted to give Mother Joseph a cow to auction off. So, he just puts a 
little tag around the neck of the cow that says, To Mother Joseph. That's it, and it gets to her 
[laughs]. Now, everybody knew Mother Joseph Vancouver, that was the headquarters in 
Vancouver. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  01:10 
Thing is, though, since Mother Joseph took a male name when she ordered-- entered the order, 
do you know why she chose the name Joseph? Or-- 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  01:19 
--her father was Joseph. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  01:19 
Oh. 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  01:19 
She was very close to her father for one thing. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  01:33 
And also she had-- understand, had carpentry skill.  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  01:36 
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Yeah, right. Carpentry skill. And then there is St. Joseph that-- you know, the carpenter in a 
sense. So that would be kind of a connotation, too.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  01:36 
Uh, let's see [tuts]. [Inaudible]. Okay, let's see back to your-- okay, you were first put on an 
obstetrical ward--[inaudible] that was again mostly assigned. 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  01:45 
That's right.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  01:47 
So, you didn't have that much choice about it. What did you feel? How did you feel about 
working that job? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  02:13 
That's a good question, because when I finished as a young nurse in 1942, I was asked if I would 
take a position in one of the delivery rooms in obstetric departments, in one of our hospitals. And 
I said no, because I haven't had enough experience, and I'd like to get some more experience in 
general to do nursing. And then I was asked again if I would teach in one of our schools of 
nursing. And I said, I want to get some experience first. And then, the very day of my profession, 
which was in February, in '45, the province director called me in, and she said, Now dear, you're 
going to St. Vincent hospital and you're going to be an obstetrical nursing partner. So I got on the 
train at eight o'clock the next morning, and rode down with the sister who was a supervisor in 
obstetrical nursing from one of the other hospitals. And I was placed under the supervision of 
one of our sisters who was supervisor of the department, and worked with her. She was an 
excellent supervisor, just excellent. And I worked with her for, oh, maybe a few months, and 
then the superior called me in at the hospital and said the supervisor was going off for her 
masters, and she suggested that I be put in her place. So I did assume that responsibility. And at 
that point, you know, we do what you were asked to do.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  03:42 
Was this, as a supervisor, mainly administrative work?  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  03:45 
Administrative, because-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  03:47 
--[inaudible] vocation? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  03:47 
--we had three. Well, it's administration really, because we had three-- it was 100 bed obstetrical 
unit. And it was during the war, it was crowded. We'd have 125 deliveries a month. You know, 
every day you'd have 8 or 9 deliveries. But the thing is, you had organized, well organized 
departments. You had the delivery rooms, you had delivery room supervisor, you had the floor, 
you had a floor support, you had a nursery, you had a nursery supervisor. And you coordinated 
all these activities and worked with them. So-- and believe me, you learned in those days. I can 
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remember when someone wouldn't come for the formulas or something for the-- in the nursery, 
you'd have to get in and help with that, or in the delivery room, even to the extent that I gave 
anesthesia for some of the cases, was taught to do that. The nurses were taught to do that at that 
time. A [?drop ether?] kind of thing for the delivery. Really, when I think about it now... 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  04:53 
Did you have any trouble getting supplies during the war?  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  04:57 
No, not from the hospitals that I can remember so much. What I do remember well at St. 
Vincent's is that we went from, seems to me it was a 44 to a 40 hour a week, and that was kind of 
a really hard thing in terms of personnel. Sometimes you'd come on and you'd have a couple of 
wards. For example, we used to have some wards as well as private rooms, and would be-- 
would not be covered with nurses. So you'd have to get in and help in that situation. So there was 
kind of a shortage of nurses. There was a baby boom, in a sense. Very, very busy department. It's 
a big problem.  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  05:35 
Well, it was the '40s. '45, and it was... Then we did birth certificates. I did the birth certificates. It 
was a busy, busy kind of thing.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  05:35 
I thought with all the guys going off to war, it wouldn't even been that many children, but... 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  05:51 
Were all the nurses you worked with-- or they all Sisters of Providence? Or was some of them 
[inaudible]--  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  05:57 
Oh, no, no. Most of them were-- no, no, I was the only sister on the floor as supervisor. I would 
say, when I was there, all of them professional nurses, you know, are in and... Then you have 
personnel departments that screen all these nurses, nursing service, and all that director and all 
that. So it's a highly professional kind of department. But I had very capable people in those 
areas. To this day, I hear from them like... In the delivery room, this whole-- the doctors too 
were-- at that time, had professional nurses with them who came in with their patient and stayed 
with them, and called the doctor when the mother was ready, and stayed to see that patient 
through, so that, you know, you work well with those. There were top physicians there, in terms 
of obstetricians who had large practices at that time.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  07:00 
This is just-- considering the general time period, I am just-- one of the things that we were sort 
of instructed to find out about it was, where were you when you first heard about Pearl Harbor? 
And did the start of World War II? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  07:15 
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You know where I was? I was not yet-- I had not yet entered. That was about '43, was it 
December? Or '42? '42.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  07:15 
Well, '40-- '41, December 7, '41.  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  07:22 
Okay, you know, where I was? My sister, Maxine, been married a few years, and she and her 
husband, Don, used to buy homes and then kind of renovate them, you know, and then sell them 
and move them out. Well, they had a nice little place in Berkeley, and it was close to Oakland. 
And on my days off, I would go out there and spend with Maxine and Don. So I was in School of 
Nursing at that time, and I can remember Maxine and Don were putting newspapers in the walls 
of that little house on Browning Street, just as little historical events. You know, about Pearl 
Harbor, when they were plastering up the walls or something, and they'd lay linoleum in the 
kitchen and things, and I would used to help them, and enjoy going out there for a day off from 
nursing, and that's where I was. At Maxine and Don's place.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  08:19 
Okay, so you were from Province College of Nursing. What was the nursing course like? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  08:28 
It was rigid because we were there for early morning to [?afternoons?]. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  08:32 
Can you give an idea of what your typical day, if you had any such thing, was like? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  08:37 
Yes, we had heavy classes, heavy sciences. We had all our sciences right there, anatomy, 
physiology, microbiology. In fact, when I applied for nursing there as a high school student and 
went for an interview, the sister said, I think it's better that you have a year or two of college 
before you come. Well, I wanted to be a nurse, and I didn't think that was necessary, you know, 
so I went home and asked the principal of the high school to write, and the pastor to write, and 
my friends to write for references. And the next time I went, a lot was accepted, but a number of 
the students in my class had preliminary sciences, you know, like a community college or-- not 
community college at that time, like at Holy Names or other colleges, private or otherwise. But-- 
so we had heavy sciences; medical, surgical nursing, psychiatric nursing. We spent a lot of time 
over at the county hospital. We were given a lot of responsibility as young nurses. At the county, 
we would have the whole communicable disease wards, we were in charge. You'd have patients 
coming in, and as a daily routine, as a regular routine, you had to bathe all new patients, these 
were any adults or whatever. And if you had communicable-- this was communicable. So you'd 
go in and you'd have to scrub in the room. So you'd have some people with DT's, and you'd have 
to restrain them, or you'd have somebody with a high fever, and you'd have to constantly try to 
give them wet packs, or hot-- to relieve the fever, or whatever. Anyway, you were caught up in 
more than you could ever do. And I can remember the supervisor would come around at night 
and see how everything was. But I used to walk up to the mirror in our rooms at Harborview-- 
not, pardon me, not Harborview, it was Alameda County where we were. I'm thinking here, in 
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the county-- and say to the mirror, One more day. Really. Because I found it was just almost 
overwhelming.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  10:40 
Well, you said about half is classroom work and half working the wards, or? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  10:45 
Mostly. Boards and afternoons were class, even on your day off, you had class. I remember once 
the roommate and I said, let's just go, say we have an appointment. We wanted to go to a show. 
So we went up to the instructor, it was a senior class in professional trends or something like 
that. We told her we had an appointment, and she said, Okay, well, then you will take the next 
class. You know, we could teach the next class or something. So we, at that point, we just said 
that was okay, and we went to the show and had a good time, and when we came back, we told 
the rest of the class and so we all pitched in, and all took part of the class. And, you know. But 
no, we had days off, and we had classes on those days. We worked nights, and we got up for 
class in the afternoon, at one o'clock. We worked nights and we were also on call. You worked 
days and you were on call. You worked till 11. You were told to go off and you came back at 
night. It was heavy, it was hard, it was... it was a lot of practical work that we did. Nowadays, the 
nursing program is streamlined on a more of a collegiate program, like your lay-student in any 
other program or discipline. You work a certain number of hours. In those days, we called it 
1095 days. You had to put in your days, three years. And if you missed a day, you sort of had to 
make it up, kind of thing. We also had two months of tuberculosis, out in the tuberculosis fan. 
Worked right there with the TB patients for two months. California was very strict about 
communicable diseases. A lot of people didn't come to the state because they couldn't get 
reciprocity, because they didn't have enough communicable diseases in the areas in which they 
had gotten their nursing in other states. And so they have to make it up. We had heavy 
communicable disease in California for practice. We had also psychiatric as a choice. We could 
have some psychiatric nursing, which I chose. Two weeks or something, [?when I was there?].  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  13:12 
Think about... um-- I can't think of it right now. Anyway, let's see. And so most of this, of you 
going on to getting your MA and your PhD and all that-- 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  13:25 
--that's right-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  13:25 
--oh, it's mostly at the instigation, shall we say, of the order? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  13:32 
That's right, very definitely.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  13:34 
Did you really feel encouraged by that? Or...? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  13:40 
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I feel like-- I love study. I love school. I love research. You know? 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  13:46 
So it's not much of a drag? 'Cause I don't know if I'll want to get my MA, you know what I mean 
[laughs]. 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  13:46 
No, I didn't. Because I just love-- I also love the university setting, 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  13:46 
Oh, this Catholic University in Washington, DC. What was that like? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  13:46 
I loved it. Oh, I loved it there in the District, because Catholic University is an old university 
and, you know, and it's a reputable-- it had a very good nursing program at that time, Dr. 
[?Heidrick?] moved there, and she was excellent. Olivia-- Sister Olivia was the dean. It was a 
very fine program in nursing, and it was a good program. What I liked about living in the District 
was just being in the District with all the history there. And I remember in graduate work, you 
know, you don't have class every day, you have-- I think I might've had class from one to nine, 
kind of thing. And then, like on Thursdays, I didn't have any class. So Thursdays, I used to go 
down to the different-- oh, the Mellon Art Gallery, or the FBI building, or the Justice or-- 
whatever, to take in the district, you know, whatever? I have a little countdown on the things I 
wanted to see once and I love the District. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  14:56 
I'll say, most of your educational events, except-- is it-- was it, a BA in nursing?  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  15:05 
BS. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  15:06 
A BS. 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  15:07 
BSNE. That's a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Education. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  15:10 
Oh, that-- yeah. In nursing education. Oh, that's Seattle U. They mostly sent you out of state for 
the rest of this, they've-- think that there was-- 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  15:25 
--oh, I'm not-- that-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  15:26 
--there wasn't that much of nursing training at-- in Seattle at that time, or in western Washington?  
 
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Sister Rita Bergamini  15:34 
Well, Prov-- you know Seattle U has never had a masters in nursing for one thing, and Catholic 
U had a very fine program. And our sisters from-- it's interesting how they've been educated. 
You know, they're highly educated in the different fields, really, for a group of women. They 
have been sent where they have felt that there would be sort of the best education for that person. 
Probably why I was sent to Catholic U. As far as Berkeley goes, I had taken a class in research 
nursing from Dr. [?Fay Abdullah?], who was outstanding. And it was she who said, when I was 
told that I was going to get something in research, the community wanted, on the province level, 
somebody with a more historical background in research. And they asked-- they were going to 
send me for that, and I talked with her about it, and she was the one that said, Sister, the best 
program is at Berkeley. And the reason for that is there were very few, if any, at that time, 
doctorates in nursing, but some universities were working out programs with nurses who were 
coming in the education department and working out a kind of a program for them. So, she said 
that Berkeley was one of those places, and she highly recommended Berkeley. That's when I 
went to Berkeley. And I love Berkeley. I loved it there.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  16:58 
Back in Seattle, you-- late '40s or so, what was that like? At least, of any teachers, anything like 
that, stand out in your mind? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  17:13 
I think Father Robinson taught sociology.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  17:21 
Why would he stand out in mind? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  17:21 
Just because of the person that he was.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  17:24 
Very outgoing, or what? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  17:27 
I think, more of a spiritual person, in a sense. Great compassion. I remember, always interested 
in students. And when I was at Providence, I remember one young student was having a 
problem, and I think his mother was an alcoholic or something, and they were trying to get some 
help for him. And he was always reaching out to the students, even when he was over in 
Spokane, over at Medical Lake with those students there. He was a sociologist, but he, in a very 
practical sense, was carrying his sociology out with campus and outside. Whoever was in need, 
that man was ready to help, in a sense. Yes, I really did have some outstanding teachers. I would 
say he was one of them. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  18:12 
Seattle University, of course, that's the Bachelor of Science. Okay, that was nursing education.  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  18:20 
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That was nursing education. We had-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  18:23 
--had more than nursing-- 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  18:24 
--we had-- yes, that's right. We had statistics. We had to take some sciences over again because 
of the fact that they just required those sciences and the fact that we had them in a program that 
wasn't affiliated with the university. But they didn't give you that kind of credit. You know, 
nowadays you can take a course that will give you an equivalency, maybe to a certain degree, but 
at that point you didn't, so some of those things you kind of repeated. But I love-- I like the 
liberal arts courses. I remember at Seattle U, when I was in my senior year, I had a chance to 
take an elective. We had not too many opportunities to take elective in our professional courses, 
because they were usually crowded with sciences, and there's some professional courses, but I 
did have an opportunity to take an elective. So I chose economics, because I felt that I hadn't had 
anything in economics, and I was always glad I did. It was kind of a bulls, and bears, and ABCs 
in economics. You know? And then in Seattle University, we had theology as a requirement. 
And that I enjoyed too, because, having been through public school, I didn't have the kind of 
systematic education.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  19:35 
And did you-- felt that was sort of a disadvantage? Having become a nun without having been to 
a parochial school? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  19:42 
You know, I felt, really, that some who had been through parochial schools thought they'd had it 
and so were not really kind of that interested. But I just ate up everything, in reading. I just loved 
doing spiritual books. I just sort of had an appetite for it. Where I felt that those who had been-- 
even in the School of Nursing, when I was with students who had been graduates of Catholic 
school, you know, if we had certain, like, what we call fidelities or little religious groups or 
something, they weren't interested. They had it in high school. But I was interested in all that, 
because I didn't start it-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  20:13 
Any sort of theologians who you like reading better than others, or? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  20:17 
Oh, I had a whole host of them in those days, yeah. Those were the days that like-- Goodier, I 
liked. Alban Goodier and his books like Christ, the books on the death of Christ and the active 
life of Christ and-- oh, it's-- traditionally, in the Sisters of Providence would read a half hour of 
spiritual reading a day, and I've kept up that tradition pretty well. I do it before Mass in the 
morning, half hour almost. Now I read like America, not for spiritual reading as much, but 
review for religious and studies in Jesuit spirituality and the new books published on it , so they 
even keep up. I think it's very important. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  20:17 
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Are you much of a singer yourself? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  20:17 
I love to sing, and we are singing at Christmas, a special program of carols and things that we're 
going to have here. And it's in the area. I've always joined the choir, since like, Catholic U, I 
belong to the Sisters' Choir, big choir. I don't have much of a voice, but I love to sing. In the 
novitiate, we sang beautiful hymns, gorgeous three part, French, Latin, little motet, beautiful 
things, you know. And I love to sing, and I enjoy the music.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  21:03 
What, the idea that there's so much to learn, or some way that the ideas keep changing, or what? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  21:10 
Well, there are insights on prayer, like Father [?Maloney?] now, the Jesuit who is spending his 
life now in sort of a contemplative prayer. Study, lecture, kind of thing, he's doing some writing. 
I think it's good to-- it sort of fills the mind so that it's not upgrading in the spiritual life. And I 
think that's important. Times change, the-- just like in any profession, I think it's important to 
keep up with your journals or whatever. So I think, since religion is our priority, it's important to 
keep up. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  21:55 
You mentioned that, okay, you have a half an hour set apart for spiritual reading. Okay, will you 
give me a rough idea what your typical day, if you have any such thing now, is like? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  22:05 
Well, my life is simple, because I usually get up about, oh, 5:20, so-- and between six and seven, 
I pray, half-hour spiritual reading, the morning logs, meditation, quiet, mental prayer, in the 
chapel. And then at seven o'clock, we have mass till about 7:30, then I have breakfast. I'm in the 
office at eight. It's the full day, till about 4:30. And then, I pray another half hour, usually 
evening vespers. Meditation, prayer, quiet, and then we have supper here about five, which is 
really-- and I like the news. I usually watch the evening news, CBS and some of the local. I'm 
not much of a television-- I like viewer, I like documentaries and Masterpiece Theatres' special 
things, but I have a lot of other hobbies that I'm interested in and other things that I like to do 
rather than watch TV. I love classical music and King FM has opera Monday night and Friday 
night. We grew up with opera in the home because my mother was just a lover of art and music. 
And actually, Saturday was the 41st broadcast of Metropolitan Opera. I'm sure that I heard half 
of them. Since the very beginning, we always listened on Saturday. So this gives me a chance in 
the evening to do just a few little things, like that.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  24:19 
So you have set times of prayer. It's not like holy hours or whatever, the con-- wasn't held the 
eight times a day. 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  24:30 
Those-- no-- 
 
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Susan Lynn Ehlers  24:31 
--or is that more of a contempla-- 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  24:32 
--here we have a Holy Hour on first Fridays of the month here, but-- now it's up to the individual, 
the prayer life, more or less, because it's almost impossible to get the sisters, I mean that they're 
working on-- in our house, it's a retirement center. It's different. They have a kind of a different 
way of life, which is understandable here, but essentially now the sister-- the responsibilities for 
the prayer is part of the sisters', her responsibility. And, like on the average meeting once a 
month, there might be one day that's kind of a quiet day. Call it a day of recollection, or retreat. 
Retreat is when you come aside and, you know, from the regular duties, and just quietly, 
Saturday, we'll have a day of retreat. Sometimes there's the priest director for that comes and we 
have a mass, he might do a conference. Preparation for Christmas. You know, the theme of 
Christmas, what it means, and it's a quiet day of prayer. And then every year, we have at least six 
days of retreat. I really love that. It's quiet. And I like a quiet retreat. It's for you. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  25:41 
You go off to some convent or wherever? 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  25:46 
Some... yes, usually we have what we call a retreat house, like Visitation in Tacoma or Spokane. 
The Holy Sisters might have a retreat, and we can, you know, join them, where they can come 
over here with our group assistants or whatever there. And Portland has the Jesuit retreat house. 
Their retreat house is all over, where people can go and where it's set up with the environment of 
quiet, and library, and whatever that's conducive for retreat, spiritual retreat. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  26:26 
Okay, the thing is, someone mainly working in administration, you, except for first working on 
the OB ward, that didn't have too much contact with patients developing-- 
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  26:43 
Well, we did, because we visited them every day. We didn't get to know them.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  26:48 
There weren't any patients that particularly stood out in your mind?  
 
Sister Rita Bergamini  26:51 
Yeah. You know, being twice. I think... We had, on the OB, a medical patient. She was about 
eight months or six months along, but she had a medical condition, so she was on OB. And 
doctor came along and-- or it was said that we should put in everything in her room, in case there 
would-- she would go into labor, or she would die, and then would, you know, you'd do a 
cesarean section right there. So I remember coming up after evening prayer. We had evening 
prayer in the community room downstairs at St. Vincent, and I went to check the patients. This 
was 8:30, you usually went to check just to see that-- with the supervis-- evening supervisor, but 
everything was in order on the floor. Which we did, we were responsible for 24 hours of care in 
our department. And she said, as I went into the chart room, Sister, we took the tray with the 
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instruments out in that room. I said, you did? That meant that they wouldn't be able to do the 
section. And I said, Why would you do that? And she said, Well, you can't do a section on a 
patient like that. I said, Oh? So I went right down to the superior, and she was very good, very 
capable woman, I remember, and as a young sister, I always liked her very much, because she 
really had faith in the young sister and allowed you to take responsibility. She you know, she 
was very good. So, I told her about that, and I said, I would like to go put those instruments back. 
And so we decided we would do that. So I did. And then I told the nurse about that, and the 
interns were vetting, and they were supposed to call the doctor ready. Well, we put the 
instruments back, and then it's about nine or 10 or something, and I went off to bed, and the next 
morning, I found out that they had done the section about an hour later. That woman died, and 
they needed to do the section. Well, the question was, really, see, you should have had consent to 
somebody there for the family-- but it's a little moral problem in there, and it was kind of 
backwards. But we did get the consent of the husband afterwards, but-- and we did get the doctor 
in there trying to figure that out, what the procedure would be. But I remember it was kind of a, 
you know, a hard situation in that for me, because that was a new situation for me. The other 
thing about that was, we had so many patients. Did the child live? Yes, the child lived. Eight 
months, I think it was. I don't know whatever happened later, but, yeah. But here, the doctor said 
to me afterwards, she said, Sister, you could never be sued for operating on a dead body and 
saving a live individual, but see, you can reason that way, but still, you should follow certain 
procedures. Yeah. And the other thing is, there was one very fine obstetrician. I. Yeah, and I was 
making rounds with him, go to the patients with him and see how patients were, and he would 
make his comments. I was making rounds with him, walk into the room, and as we stepped out, I 
said, Oh, Doctor, this was another medical patient, and the instruments were there. This-- these 
were only two. But when you consider how many patients we had, it seemed like, you know, two 
were even a lot to have in that condition. But nevertheless, I said, Oh, Doctor, I'm home, and I'm 
so sorry that you're going to be out of town for a few days. This patient's really sick, and I just 
don't like to see you go. And he said, Well, Doctor So-And-So is going to take my patient 
immediately. 