"The Good Ol' Days!"

[BostonTerrierLover]

I was blown away to find out student nurses could not be married during school, when one of my instructors went to a Public Charity Hospital based Diploma Nursing Program.

I loved hearing about having to sterilize everything, and how the student nurses practically ran the hospital. ("A Physician would find a Nurse, begin a Hospital, . . .and start a Nursing School." -Straight out of one of my old Nursing School Text books."

How mental institutions have changed soooooooo dramatically just over the last 50 years!

How cancer was once an instant death sentence.

That Physicians sometimes slept at the bedside of a really sick patient, . . .And made housecalls!!!!

How hospitals were once basically an inpatient hospice before the advent of medicinal treatments such as antibiotics/antivirals.

That one of my instructors from the ADN program worked 7 days a week for $1 per shift her whole first year! (was pinned in 1957).

How one of my professors broke down in tears when a patient with a radio told her that JFK had been shot in Dallas, TX.

How one nurse had every child she had drafted in WWII, so she went as a "Civilian" Nurse to the Corps, and worked at Westpoint post-wartime.

Please add what you know about Nursing in the Past, you don't have to be from a previous era to join in, I'm not, but I promise to cherish each piece of information.

Any books or movies you could recommend a plus too! (History Buff!)

And, if you are from an era before the present, please share some stories about the Nursing Profession, and other memorable events from thah era!!! I can't wait to read them!!! If these stories aren't passed on, it makes me shiver to think we could loose just one!!

What Could You Share about the "Way Things Were Back Then?"

[jhanes]

Thanks for your aunt's story--and for the Thos. Jefferson quote!

[jhanes]

I got my Nursing Education in the early to late 1970s as well. One hospital I worked in had a Nurses' Lounge where the walls started out off white at the bottom and turned more brown the further up the walls that you looked. The ceiling, which had been white some 20 years before, was yellow. It stank in there, but al most all of the nurses smoked, so I gave report and got the h-e-l-l out asap afer report.

[jrbl77, RN]

Very interesting post. Next month, i will be out of nsg school 35 yrs. have worked as a staff nurse since then. have seen many changes, but the best improvement I think I have seen is the wound vac. When I think of pts of mine in the past that would have benefitted- my their lifes wouldn't have been shortened or so miserable to the end.

Of course there have been many changes, I remeber mixing chemo drugs in the back med room, nothing special, just did it. Peritonel dialysis temp caths being placed in the procedure room on the floor. They leaked terribly. We hung 8 glass bottles and had to carry a stop watch to time everything. Oh. by the way the pts were usually in a semiprivate room.

It amazes me all the changes. Pts used to get a complete bed change twice per day. As a new grad, I woked on a 64 bed unit. On nights we would have 3 or 4 nurses and evenings maybe 4 or 6. I also remember a pt or 2 bleeding out from their carotids, there was nothing to do, but try to comfort the family and clean up the mess after it was all over.

I have about 10 more yrs to work, wonder what other changes I will see. I can imagine my some former teachers and adminstrators rolling over in their graves if they saw some of the changes!

[jrbl77, RN]

Just remembered one more thing, Drs making rounds with their cigars and leaving them on the handrail outside the pt room. We could always tell when certain Drs had rounded.

[jhanes]

To the mind of this RN, who has been out of Nursing School 32 years, healthcare was better before Big Government and the corporations rung the CARE out of healthcare, as evidenced by your description of hospital care in the 70s. That's the way that I experienced it as well. How short our memories are! We have been heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction in health care since about 1965. It was way cheaper back then, by a factor of 12-14, when one compares medical bills, insurance premiums and inflation from 1965 to today. And in fact, about 80% of people had insurance coverage back then, about the same as today--but nobody coiunted people covered by charity care (ex-Medicaid) as insurance back then, like they do now, so really, more than 80% were covered nthen; much less than 80% today, so where is the benefit from Billions $pent? When you look at it that way, we were better off as a population before Medicaid and Medicare and the so-called Great Society.

[Code_VSA]

My instructor in the LPN program (1974) was from Quebec, Canada. She would tell us during her rotation as an OB student nursed, they would have to get up during the night and go to deliveries. As proof to the Nuns that they actually went, it was required to bring back the placenta as proof. She said one night, it fell out of the back of the horse drawn buggy and dogs got a hold of it.

My other instructor, an ex-Army Mash nurse, said that during the 40's, nurse's weren't allowed to take blood pressures. It was a doctor's job. When asked if the movie/sit-com "Mash" had any facts to it, she would just smile mischieviously and walk away.

[Dalzac, LPN, LVN, RN]

I started as an aide in ICU in 1977. We could smoke at the desk then. The monitors then were a bouncing ball type oscillascope. We had to mark the leads when we ran EKG's. We did 15 minute VS without the help of any machines The drips were not on any pumps. We had team nursing, the RN was in charge and did all the charting, the LPN gave all the meds and watched all the iv's, the techs did ALL the patient care, I an O's, urine tests with the strips and there was no floating for anyone. Staffing wasn't done by acuity. If you were scheduled you came to work. And no one was sent home or floated if census was low. You just cleaned everything. And rearranged files and such.

[traumajunkie63]

What Could You Share about the "Way Things Were Back Then?"

it really wasnt that too long ago.. i went to a DIploma Nursing School...we stayed in the dorms, had to be in by midnight during the week or the front doors were locked and even had a "house mom"...i graduated in 1985.....

i too love to hear the stories about the days of old....

[MaleICURN, BSN]

Well, I graduated 1974.

That would be a book, to catch all the differences. Let's try just a few.

1. Nurses BEHIND the doctor. NO questions. Doctor said: "20 mg of Morphine" - answer "Yes, Sir"

2. No disposable stuff whatsoever. Daily sterilization of syringes (glass) and needles (steel). Cleaning inside needles.

3. Bedpans, urinals - metal.

4. No IV pumps, I remember first IV pumps (very primitive by today's standards) used for pressors only.

5. 3 color charting - depends on the shift: morning - blue, afternoon - green, night - red.

6. Monitors on ICU, sometimes one monitor for a patient, no central monitor (however, sometimes happened a central, alarms printed with hyphens r/t number of the bed [bed nr 3 = ---], no differentiation for alarms, like the same sound for disconnected electrode or VF).

7. Smoking - patients, nurses, doctors - one exemption was OR, however in the OR lounge everybody smoked.

8. Very HOT OR - at least 98-99 degrees, no patient's warming blankets.

9. Only one nurse dispensing meds for the whole unit (except ICU).

10. Three 8 hrs shifts.

11. Gloves ONLY for the OR, specifically the surgical team.

12. Continuous staff cover for OR (no calls).

13. Making gauze dressings (today's 4x4's or 2x2's).

14. Celebrating coffee meeting for the whole team after each medium/big surgery (maybe except for little cases like T&A).

15 Long turn on surgical cases (see # 14).

16. In each and every hospital each unit had a physician present 24/7 (not on call), on occasion a physician present on unit called himself for help (e.g. emergency big surgery).

and so on, and so on...

[merlee]

My class (1974) was the first NOT required to wear a girdle!! We had grey uniforms with a white collar and cuffs, had to have freshly polished/cleaned nursing shoes, and I had a navy cape.

Most nurses still stood to relinquish their seat at the NURSES' station so the docs would have a place to sit.

A med room stocked w/big bottles of certain meds, and a tray with cups to carry from room-to-room to give the meds. Then came the carts.

Color-coded charting led to multi-colored pens! We each had one, with 3 or 4 different barrels in them.

Mercury sphyg's were common, on wheels, then came the aneroids.

Capping and pinning ceremonies - tears in all of our eyes!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

whilst caps do have a certain place in the profession's history, and or for some even present day practice, notwithstanding one's own nostalgic reminiscences on the matter, cannot imagine anyone seriously wanting to go back to them today.

it's sort of like women/girls who pine for *real* playtex rubber or "18 hour" girdles. yeah they did work but you've no idea of the suffering. *lol*

​spanx aren't that much better!

[Code_VSA]

Any one mention glass mercury thermometers for oral/rectal temps? I couldn't imagine giving a bath today with my bare hands like we use to. Ughhhh.