Nurse and Limited Practitioner Certificates

If you are tracking a person who was a registered nurse or other type of non-physician practitioner, two volumes in our collection might be valuable.  The earlier volume is Certificates of Registered Nurses and Limited Practitioners.  It covers the years 1916-1948, and is limited to persons who lived and/or practiced in Licking County.  The non-nurse "limited practitioners" described in it include chiropractors, optometrists, osteopaths, chiropodists, electrotherapists, hydrotherapists, massage therapists and psychotherapists.  Also included are practitioners in areas which are not widely considered to be legitimate today, such as magnetic healers and mechanotherapists.

The later volume, from 1948-56, is entitled Registered Nurses Certificates.  It does not list non-nurse practitioners.

The records of registered nurses in both volumes indicate the names of the nurses, the nursing schools from which they graduated and the graduation dates.  The records of limited practitioners show the names of the practitioners and the fields in which they were authorized to practice.  Addresses are provided for some of the nurses and limited practitioners.  It is unclear, in many cases, whether these are home or work addresses.  A few addresses indicate hospital affiliations.  All of the certifications were issued by the State Medical Board of Ohio.  The certifications were then recorded in these two volumes which were maintained by the Licking County Probate Court.

Although some optometrists are listed in the first volume described above, there are also separate volumes of Licking County optometrist certifications.  These are located in the basement of the Domestic Relations Court building, and are entitled Ohio State Board of Optometry Certifications.  To get access to them, please contact either the Licking County Records and Archives Department, tel. 740-670-5121, or the Domestic Relations Clerk of Courts, tel. 740-670-5392.

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