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PRACTICAL NURSE TRAINING Statement by Earl J. McGrath; U. S. Commissioner of Education, Before Subcommittee on Public Health and Science of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, on Title I, Part B, H.R. 4312, 4313, and 3894 I am Earl J. McGrath, U. S. Commissioner of Education. I wel- come the opportunity to appear before this Subcommittee to discuss the provisions of House bills 4312, 4313, and 3894 insofar as they deal with the training of practical nurses. While such a training program must quite properly be considered as an integral part of a total program for the training of health personnel, I shall necessarily limit my remarks, and shall not undertake to discuss all the provisions of. these bills as they pertain to the education of other types of health personnel. The Need for an Expanded Program for Training Practical Nurses The Public Health Service has estimated that 276,500 practical nurses will be needed in the noxt ten years; that at present we are training for the Nation as a whole only about 2,000 a year. There is thus an increasingly pressing need at the present time for practical nurses to serve in hospitals of all types, in homes for the agod, in industrial plants, as assistants to visiting nurses and public health nurses, and in private homos. The roalization of the important part that the practical nurse should play in the provision of moro adequate health services for the American poople is of comparatively recent origin. It springs in some