1LT Elaine Margauerite Sorensen Oral History

title:

1LT Elaine Margauerite Sorensen Oral History

creator:

Sorensen, Elaine Marguerite (Seifriz) (1926 September 24 - )

subject:

USPHS Cadet Nurse Corps

description:

Elaine Marguerite Sorensen (formerly Seifriz) was born on September 24, 1926 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her father was an air raid warden during World War II, in high school she was in the Civil Air Patrol, and she graduated in the midst of wartime rationing. She heard about the Cadet Nurse Corps and decided to join in August 1944. She was the last to be accepted, and went to St. Mary’s on the Lake School of Nursing for her training. There was an emphasis on accelerated training, so they worked 7 days a week and 16 hours a day. He father did not want her to join, but her mother approved. World War II ended while she was still in training, but by joining the Cadet Nurse Corps she had made the commitment to serve for two years. She and her husband each utilized the GI Bill to get bachelors degrees, and she eventually got 3 masters degrees and a doctoral degree in Health Science by 1975. She got into an 8-year program with the National Institute of Mental Health that she nearly missed out on because she was a 39-year-old woman. In that program, she chose to focus on St. Vincent Sanitarium, which was an eye-opening experience for her. She saw both how busy the nurses were and the incredibly broad range of treatments they were allowed to carry out, from psychotherapy to lobotomies. She knew there had to be a better way to provide effective care to mental patients and worked to improve practices. After St. Vincent, she worked as an administrator at a private psychiatric hospital and taught at university. She formed and was faculty at a research and training psychiatric hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which was the first private cooperative group. The group’s goal was to develop new approaches to treatment in psychiatric facilities. She was also a co-chair on a committee no training and planning for the state of Wisconsin. She continued working in and studying psychotherapy and psychiatric care with the goal of improving diagnosis and treatment processes, often in collaboration with the NIMH. Her first husband was opposed to psychiatry and they divorced, and she met her second husband, a Navy veteran who was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, who was in the same graduate program as she was in California. They shared many goals and married in 1966. They both had the GI Bill to thank for their education after leaving the military, fundamentally changing the course of their lives. When she left the service Sorensen had reached the rank of 1st lieutenant. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Driver, Wanda

date:

2004-08-10

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

870; 2004.870

source:

CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

234982

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1944-47

rights:

Unrestricted