A Dedicated Public Health Nurse

MISS EUGENIA BROUGHTON, a public health nurse with the Berkeley County Health Department of South Carolina, is shown here teaching newborn baby care to a class of pregnant women. Born in 1914, “Miss Genie” never married but devoted herself to the health care and education of people in the sparsely populated rural area around Charleston. Nurse Broughton received her nursing training and diploma at the Charity Hospital of Savannah, Ga, in 1937. In Summerville, SC, she worked under the auspices of the Reformed Episcopal Church as a “special community nurse.” Nurse Broughton walked the dusty roads daily to visit her patients until one of the church members gave her a used Buick. As one of her contemporaries noted, Miss Genie nursed the people, sang with them, drove them to the local clinic, and sometimes preached to them. Miss Genie completed postgraduate public health nurse training at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in 1948. When she returned again to Berkeley County, local church members donated the money to buy her a traveling clinic—a trailer equipped as a clinic—so that she could bring clinical services to her patients throughout the county. In 1969, the South Carolina State Board of Public Health constructed a new building, consisting of 2 examining rooms, a waiting room, and office space, to replace the aging Mobile Trailer Clinic. The Berkeley County Health Department dedicated the building to Nurse Broughton in honor of her long service and devotion to better health in Berkeley County

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