Anastasia, Florence Nightingale, and I

It was shortly after the Harvard Medical School of China in Shanghai opened its doors in 1911 that my mother, Nicia Brooks, passed through them for the first interview with Dr. Carl Arthur Hedblom, noted thoracic surgeon, for whom throughout her days at the hospital she would work as a surgical nurse, and whom she idolized. It was the interview that was to change the course of her life.