Black and white photo of nurses in the 1940s

In 1908, almost 20 years before San Bernardino Valley College existed, what is now the college’s nursing program launched as the San Bernardino County Hospital Training School. 

Its stated purpose was to provide "young women instruction in the art of caring for the sick." Students were required to make their uniforms before entering the 36-month program, and they had to live at the hospital complex and couldn’t marry, said Director of Nursing Yolanda Simental. When SBVC opened in 1926, the program affiliated with the college. 

“In those early days, the nursing students walked onto this brand-new campus to master the basic sciences. And what did they wear? They wore their white hats, blue-striped dresses, and white aprons,” Simental said at the department’s pinning ceremony in May. 

The nursing school became a department at SBVC in 1931, and graduates received both a diploma from the college and a certificate from the hospital. 

A century later, much has changed but there is an echo of familiarity. According to a book chronicling the program’s history, “there is a demand for good nurses, who will fill the ever climbing standards of the profession.”