Interview with Mary Wiss, February 14, 1979

Interview Summary

Mary Wiss came to the FNS as medical director in 1965 after having been a Sister of Charity in India and remained with the FNS until 1969. She indicates some of the difficulties she encountered at the FNS concerning personnel and equipment and contrasts those circumstances with her experience in India. Wiss believes that most of the people seen at district clinics could as easily have come to the hospital, thus eliminating the difficulty and the expense of maintaining these centers. She discusses the attitude of the American Medical Association toward midwives and gives her own perspective. Wiss asserts that the local people, being much more sophisticated than before, and many being college educated, could have been given a larger role in the operation of the FNS than they were performing in the late 1960s. Wiss also discusses various health problems and of malnutrition.

Interview Keyword

Medical directors Obstetrics Nurse-midwives Appalachian people Infantilization Self-sufficiency Poverty Malnutrition District clinics Sister of Charity in India Medical directors

Interview LC Subject

Frontier Nursing Service, Inc. Kentucky Leslie County (Ky.) Hyden (Ky.) Midwives India Appalachian Region

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Interview Usage

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