"The Good Ol' Days!"

One of my favorite things about allnurses is reading the posted "Stories" of how things used to be. I am amazed to learn about nursing in the past, and how things are different now. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

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?"

Will one of you guys elaborate on how one "Sharpens a Needle?"

Administering meds via injection predates disposable needles and syringes. So like much everything else things were made of glass and or metal and were cleaned,sanitised and or sterilized (one hopes) before reuse.

Needle tips obviously would wear down with repeated use, so they had to be sharpened as part of routine maintenance, just as one does with cutting knives.

AAHN Collectibles - Syringe Kit

Here is a more modern view

Re-Sharpening Needles - Disaster Preparedness - MedHelp:

I get a kick out of reading my baby book- I was born in January of 1980, and my mom's narration is fun. I was an emergency c-birth because I was breech, so my mom got fully knocked out, and has a railroad scar over her abdomen now. (Compared to my two little discreet low transverse ones. She talked about how she was in one room, and then there was an actual delivery room, and how my dad didn't get to go with into the OR- he had to wait in the waiting room (my husband got to be present for both our children's births via c-section). She had to share a room afterwards, and the babies could only come out of the nursery during specific hours- other than that, we were lined up in front of a big gawking window on display...ON OUR TUMMIES!

I remember when I was little, going to the doctor, and before the days of the quickie lancets, they just took a lancet-like device or something and jabbed my finger to test for something...don't recall what. When I was an LPN I reminisced with the NP I worked with that when I started kindergarten in 1985, I only had to get one shot (DTP) compared to the 4 shots I was doling out. The polio vaccine was oral, there was no Varicella vaccine yet, the MMR was given only once at age one, and that just left the good old Dip-Tet ("he's gotta get his Dip-Tet, Hi!"). Oh, and we got our shot in the school gymnasium...welcome to kindergarten, kids! I remember we got aspirin as children (until I was maybe in 4th grade or so, then they said it was dangerous) and when I had a cold or cough the doc totally recommended cough syrup or Sudafed! I can't remember what med it was I had one time but it was just awful- it was thick and tan or brown or something. It was prescribed, and it was just...BLAAH! The days before the flavor shots that they can do now in the pharmacy...

Oh the joys of "old school" L&D and maternity wards/floors. *LOL*

Babies and moms for that matter often had to adapt to the nursing routine/schedule, not the other way round.

Fathers to be remained in their own lounge from the time the mother to be was admitted (often at the first signs of labour) until she delivered. Afterwards often baby and mother went separate ways. She to maternity floor and the infant to the nursery where apparently every other female (nurse) was allowed to hold the wee one except the new mom.

Infants only came out at set times for feeding. They'd be loaded onto trolleys or nurses would take one or two and hand them over for feeding and a visit with mother. When the babies were out the floor went onto lock down. Fathers were allowed if during visiting hours, but that was about it. No Aunt Jenny and your sixteen cousins.

Infants were swaddled to within an inch of their lives (is this still taught?), and woe betide the mother who "unwrapped" her child because she didn't feel baby like it.

Smoking? Oh yes.. New mothers smoked in their rooms as did everyone else.

Cute cartoon printed scrubs? No way. It was either whites or the OR dress and depending upon one's rank or area a cap completed the outfit.

Enemas and a total shave were almost routine.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Yikes. Sorry about the typos in there. Neuropathy makes your fingers do weird things when you're typing, and auto-correct doesn't help. I can see when I've made a typo, but when auto-correct changes a word, I don't always notice.

I'm right there with ya....hence, I edit.......ALOT!

Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
This discussion got me thinking about a book my papa gave me from his mother. It has to be from the early twenties, its called Excerpta Therapeutica. In the front there are medications and their uses, I got a kick out of these:

orificenic Trioxide- used in the treatment of malaria, gastritis, diabetes and psoriasis

Chloroform- inhalations of chloroform have been used with good results in haemoptysis, and to relieve ear ache

Cocaine- local anesthetic for ophthalmic, dental, nasal urethral, and rectal surgeries

Lead Acetate- Astringent, sedative, also used for diarrhea, dysentary, and typhoid fever

Mercury Succinimide- used for intramuscular injections for syphilis, also good results in TB

I hope you hang onto that book. It sounds like a treasure.

Specializes in OR Hearts 10.

FYI back to the original post..I work with a cardiac surgeon that still spends the night next to pts that are not doing well.

Specializes in NICU.

This is an enjoyable thread.

Can someone explain the rationale behind rotating tourniquets for pulmonary edema? I'm curious.

FYI back to the original post..I work with a cardiac surgeon that still spends the night next to pts that are not doing well.
Wow. Can I write him fan mail?
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

I've seen a doc hang around when a pt wasn't doing well, but spend the night? Never.

Specializes in none.
Will one of you guys elaborate on how one "Sharpens a Needle?"

We had a sharpening stone or some places had a little grinder. You would sharpen the point of the needle. Very carefully because if you got the whole tip the needle would be useless. No med could come out of them. The pin part of the needle would be some what long then the end to allow for sharpening. you could only do it one or two times. The needle would be thick like an old lumbar puncture needle. The practice die out in the fifties. But in school we did it to see what nursing was like in the 'good old days'.

Specializes in Obs & gynae theatres.

Making an occupied bed by doing all one side at once (with pt positioned on his/her side), pushing the layers underneath pt, reposition pt, then going over to the otherside and taking away the soiled linen and pulling over the fresh.

When patients died and they were ready to move the body to the morgue all doors to other patient's rooms were closed so they couldn't see the transfer.

We still do both of these in the NHS. Re changing the sheets, how do you do that differently?
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
This is an enjoyable thread.

Can someone explain the rationale behind rotating tourniquets for pulmonary edema? I'm curious.

The theory is that constricting devices were used in a rotating order to pool blood in the extremities. The purpose is to relieve congestion in the lungs in the treatment of acute pulmonary edema. Use of the rotating tourniquet has declined with the development of vasodilating drugs and diuretics. It was said to decrease the returning volume of blood to the heart by as much as 1000 cc therefore decreasing the hearts workload so it can more effectively diurese.....an early preload reductor.

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/50/2/366.full.pdf

Clinical Nursing Procedures - Kathleen Hoerth Belland, Belland, Mary Ann Wells - Google Books