The 390,000 nurses in 1956 comprised 0.223% of the 165,000,000 population of the United States. By the year 2023 the 5,200,000 nurses in the USA comprised 1.55% of the population of 333,000 000 people in America.
Modern nursing was founded by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War (1853-56) about 100 years before this movie was made.
The pinning ceremony at a nurse's graduation is still currently part of the nurse training program. These ceremonies also include a candle-lighting or lamp-lighting ceremony, which commemorates Florence Nightingale's nighttime aid to wounded soldiers during the Crimean War and a recitation of the Nightingale Pledge, the nursing version of a doctor's Hippocratic Oath.