1950s nursing

moonmaid50 · Mar 25, 2005

My mother was a graduate in 1942 from a hospital run nursing school. Since she & my father decided to get married before she took her boards she was not allowed to take them. When the Board changed their rules 5 years later she still was not allowed, because she had been out of school too long!( She had been working in the same hospital as the nursing school the entire time, teaching the newer students and being paid 25 cents an hour.)

When the hospital closed she went to work at another hospital in the same city as a nurses aid for 52 cents an hour. At the urging of some of the doctors she had worked with at the former hospital she took night classes to become an LPN. Her pay then increased to 85 cents an hour. To add insult to injury my mother had a B.S. degree in biology and was turned down by every medical school where she applied .The "reasons" were, married, never taking her boards, women didn't have the fortitude it takes to be a Doctor, and countless other excuses. :crying2: How many other nurses had the same problems.

LPNer · Mar 25, 2005

I am not from that far back, but I do remember... the mid-late 70s.

Wagensteins, they came before Gomcos and they came before Sx at the wall.
O2 tanks at the end of the hall in an alcove that had to be wheeled to the BS for use.
The medicine room had a big cabinet with stock meds (most of those needed on the specific unit) and the midication cards to use with them. No such thing as unit dose, let alone pt specific med trays and beyond.
Restraints, including leather were at the nurses descretion
Nurses being asked to leave a postition for being sexually active and talking about it (I remember two such cases, one was a married nurse)
we had disposable syringes/needles for some things, but the glass ones were availble for others. I really don't remember how it was decided what got used when)
As a student, IVs only came in glass bottles. Though I am sure it was the late 70s when we started using plastic bags.
There were only a few kinds of antibiotics. PCN, Tetracycline, ... it's been a long time ago and antibiotics have been developing so fast since about that same time.
Everybody was in the hospital so long we actually tried to let them sleep on night shift. It remains a goal, but it rarely happens.
Epidurals didn't exsist. Spinals were the way to deliver your baby pain free.
Curare (is that spelled right?) was still very often used for operative anesthesia.
We had a big bottle of Methyline Blue in the med room.
Oh yea, there were three big cabinets, one for topical, one for oral, and one for the IV bottles. Everything was stock.
INF (independant nursing functions) did not exsist.
And as everybody else remebers, white uniforms, dress or pants, with cap. Each school had its own cap, then there were universal caps available for RN and LPN who had lost their cap or just dind't care for their school cap. The RN universal cap looked like a short paper med cup turned upside down on your head.
Tight linens. The instructor tossing a coin, if it didn't bounce, the bed was not right! Thank God when you had a pt on complete bed rest, she didn't perform that check!
NO fitted sheets! Took 2 flat sheets to make bed and keep the sheet in place over the plastic mattresses.
Going to the state capital for boards. Using pencil (#2) to fill in the dots on the paper for each of the 5 exams that constituted the boards.
Again, metal bedpans and a hopper. The first hospital I worked in out of school was new at the time. We had nifty hopper like sprayers on every toilet! That was top of the line then!
Wards. A private room was usually no bigger than a closet, and meant that pt was a VIP.
Sand bags for cataract surgery. (That was falling out of style as I entered the workforce. I worked on a eye,ears, nose and throat floor. In 1977, it was still common for the post op pt to lay flat for 12 hrs, then only be allowed to raise head some 30degrees. Again, been awhile. We had one doc who, no longer using sand bags, required the use of pillows to keep his pts from turning their heads too much.)

I am getting tired thinking of it, lots more physical labor back then; but we sure don't have a lack of physical labor now either, just from different causes.

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Mar 25, 2005

Metal IV needles, glass IVF bottles.
Barium swallows/enemas that had to be followed by castor oil cocktails to keep the barium from turning to cement in the bowel.
No CPR.
No real pain management. Be stoic or be a crybaby. Nurses and doctors decided if you were in pain and how much.
Bed rest. None of this getting up out of bed immediately after having surgery. Pain meds via IM.
No lawsuits. Doctor was "god," Nurse ran the unit with an iron fist. Patients were only allowed to know as much about their condition as the doctor felt like telling them, and nurses were expected to follow suit. A patient wasn't even to be told the BP for fear that it might raise the anxiety level, and thus the blood pressure. Ditto with many other ailments and knowledge that we take for granted now.
No dating for nursing students and in the dorm by 2100. This was 1970. (I don't recall similar rules for interns or residents or medical students, however.)
Nurses pre-poured their meds into little cups and then put them on trays to pass them to the entire ward.
Rectal temps
Placebos
Clysis
Lamb's wool to prevent skin breakdown.

VeryPlainJane · Mar 25, 2005

You could not tell a patient what his medicine was for.
He had to ask the doctor.
I'm not sure what time frame this belongs in, but at one point in time, you also could not tell the patient what his B/P or temperature was. He had to ask the doctor for that information as well.

This is so funny! When I had my daughter, who is just three now, the nurse was doing her med rounds I asked her what I was taking. She gave me the strangest look and told me she didn't know what it was and I would have to ask my doctor!!!!!!! I was like lady if you don't know what meds your passin out I don't want any of them! When I told the doctor about the nurse passin out meds she has no idea what they are he thought I was kidding till he check to see if I had refused them. He said if it was him he would have risked it. I know he was joking but at the time it pissed me off!

nursbee04 · Mar 26, 2005

[*]Tight linens. The instructor tossing a coin, if it didn't bounce, the bed was not right! Thank God when you had a pt on complete bed rest, she didn't perform that check!
[*]NO fitted sheets! Took 2 flat sheets to make bed and keep the sheet in place over the plastic mattresses.

-The hospital I did my first medsurg clinicals at in 2002 still uses two flat sheets, and the open side of the pillowcase CANNOT face the door. All the nurses are required to wear all white with 100% white shoes except on peds, surgery and OB. (Even ER has to wear white!)

-At my current hospital, on 4W Medsurg, there is still a charge nurse that wears all white, with stockings (she gave up the hat almost ten years ago) who takes her clipboard and does am rounds with all the older physicians as they come through. I don't know how she does it and still has time for her required duties, but I can tell you they worship her. Even though she doesn't wear the cap anymore, she still walks as if it's still on top of her head, hair in a bun. She has been a nurse since the early 1950's and is still kickin 40hrs a week.

LPNer · Mar 26, 2005

-The hospital I did my first medsurg clinicals at in 2002 still uses two flat sheets, and the open side of the pillowcase CANNOT face the door. All the nurses are required to wear all white with 100% white shoes except on peds, surgery and OB. (Even ER has to wear white!)
-At my current hospital, on 4W Medsurg, there is still a charge nurse that wears all white, with stockings (she gave up the hat almost ten years ago) who takes her clipboard and does am rounds with all the older physicians as they come through. I don't know how she does it and still has time for her required duties, but I can tell you they worship her. Even though she doesn't wear the cap anymore, she still walks as if it's still on top of her head, hair in a bun. She has been a nurse since the early 1950's and is still kickin 40hrs a week.

One of generally makes rounds with one of our surgeons. If we are really busy and none of us can get to him, he manages. Still can't figure out why he needs us to make rounds wih him! He talks, we stand there and then we go to the next room. Never a verbal order, assistance with a dsg, nothing. Just stand there. Thank goodness he usually doesn't have more than 3 or 4 on the floor at any one time.

ARNPsomeday · Mar 26, 2005

-at my current hospital, on 4w medsurg, there is still a charge nurse that wears all white, with stockings (she gave up the hat almost ten years ago) who takes her clipboard and does am rounds with all the older physicians as they come through. i don't know how she does it and still has time for her required duties, but i can tell you they worship her. even though she doesn't wear the cap anymore, she still walks as if it's still on top of her head, hair in a bun. she has been a nurse since the early 1950's and is still kickin 40hrs a week.

i'm curious, nursbee04, how does this charge nurse treat the nurses under her?

Titiana · Mar 26, 2005

As I'm reading these posts I'm laughing, I learned some of this stuff in my LPN year.

We learned to make a bed with 2 flat sheets (hospital corners and all), lol, haven't even had to use that knowledge.

To take part in the graduation ceromonies we not only have to wear white, but also are required to wear the cap (you can see me there huh)

Our med/surg instructor is giving us a pharmocology exam that has drugs that aren't used any more (drugs replaced 30 years ago)

we were taught that our hands could never go below our waists for anything because they are now unclean (someone failed for this) We cannot put clean linens on the end of the bed or the bedside chair, because we will contaminate them and before we put anything on the bedside table we need to sterilize it, the table that is (alcohol wipes) and nothing can touch the floor, including dirty linens (you either put them right in the dirty linen bag or bring a plasic bag in the room with you and put it on the floor first) or the Foley.

LOL, this is only part of the stuff I learned in my LPN year, I never even passed meds until my last day of Clinical, lol.

Imagine how unprepared I felt going out into the real world and moving on to my secound year. The worst part was that the whole time they kept telling us how high ranked they supposable are in the Nursing dept.

housecat1216 · Mar 26, 2005

In 1950 I was six years old, so I wasn't a nurse, but these are the things that I remember about medical care. Everyone had a family doctor who was like a member of your family. He took care of your mom and dad, aunts and uncles, grand parents and you. Our family doctor was Dr. Riech. He was a scrubby clean, sweetly serious man with a bald head with meteciously cut white hair on the sides. "His" nurse was Alma. When you went to the doctor's office, you didn't call first, you just walked in. His office was open from 7am to 4pm, Monday through Friday and from 7am till 12 noon on Saturday.
The doctor's office: The office was in a small red brick building. It had wooden door with a large glass, like a french door, and Dr. R.F. Riche, M.D. was painted neatly on the door in gold leaf, block lettering with the hours below, and a phone number to call the doctor, after hours, which was his HOME phone number. You couldn't see inside the door because it had a spotless, white, sheer curtain, gathered closely together and tightly stretched, on the inside of the door, between two curtain rods at the top and the bottom of the glass.
When you opened the door and walked inside, it was a large waiting room with dark oak wooden arm chairs lined up against three walls, and they were always full of patients. The walls always looked freshly painted, and were "hospital" green, a light minty color. There were 12x12 green and white asbestos tiles with little black veins in them, on the floor, that were so shiny that you could see yourself in it. The minute that you walked through the door, you smelled alcohol. There was a long, dark oak, chest high, counter centered in the middle of the wall that faced the entry door and a closed, dark panneled oak door was in the wall behind the counter. When you entered the office a buzzer sounded and Alma, immediately came out from the closed door behind the counter.
She knew your name, greeted you with your name, asked how the family was, how you were, and told you to have a seat and the Doctor would see you when it was your turn.
Alma was middle aged, matronly chubby, impecably dressed in a starched, never wrinkled, long sleeved, white uniform, a gold nurse pin on her breast, white hose with seams up the back, white oxfords that looked like they were new out of the box, and a friendly, smiling face with perfect makeup, under perfectly coiffed hair, and not a hair out of place under her snappy, white starched nurse's cap. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Immediately after she greeted you she went back inside the closed door. She would come out that door with a patient and go back in with another one, until it was your turn.
The office was very quiet, there was no piped in music, people visited with each other in hushed voices, no one's babies screamed, children sat quietly by their parents until it was their turn to see the doctor.
Your turn: Alma came out and said, Dr. Riech is ready for you now, Mary Lou, and you entered with her through the closed door. You were in the only exam room. It was spotless, furnished with a black upholstered bed / lounge chair kind of looking thing that was on a white porcelain pedestal that had all kinds of chrome plated gizmos on it that could be lifted from the sides, and the doctor pumped a lever on it's side with his foot to raise and lower the contraption. There were several, free standing, white enameled coated cabinets along the walls with glass windows in them like small white china cabinets, and there were all kinds of bottles jars, towels, bandages and amazing things in them. There was a skelleton in the corner of the room and a skull mounted on a stand on top of one of the cabinets. There was a white refrigerator where the doctor kept medicines and serums, etc. Alma helped you up on the table and put a glass thermometer in your mouth, took it out and told the doctor your temperature.
Dr. Riech always had on a white lab coat, never a speck or wrinkle. He wore a head band thing around is forehead to the back of his head that had a round shiny silver reflector kind of thing with a light and a hole for his eye to look through, attached to it. He would make small talk with you, while asking your symptoms. He always looked in your ears with a pointy flash light thing, and would say humm, then he have you open you mouth, press your tongue down with a unwrapped clean depressor that he pulled from a jar full of depressors, (no gloves, but his hands always smelled like Lifebuoy Soap), and say, "Say ahh", you said,"Ahh", and he would stick the depressor in, look around, remove the depressor, and Alma would take it from him and throw it in a big white enameled waste can with a lid that she opened with her foot on a lever. Dr. Riche would then pull down the round shiny thing on his head and looked into your eyes.
When I needed a shot, Alma prepared the injection and handed it to Dr. Riche. He gave the shot. I would cry, he would coddle, pamper, and tell you it was almost over while Alma held your arm still, and looked at you with an angelic-like expression of reassurance. When you looked at Alma, you just knew that everything was really just fine, and you knew that Dr. Riche really cared about you and would never let anything bad happen to you. When it was over, Dr. Riche gave you a new depressor to take home with you and a couple of brand new white bandaids to use on your dolls, and a cherry flavored lollypop on a kind of flexible string handle. He gave you and your Mom a hug and Alma took you to the closed door and let you out and brought the next patient in. If you remembered to, you paid Alma for the visit, if you forgot they never billed you, and never said a word to you about it. We always paid him. It was always about $5.00, maybe $7. or $10. if you got a shot, or one of those tiny, little white envelopes with medicine that he dispensed right from his office. I loved Dr. Riche, Alma, and going to the doctor. Everyone did.

I really enjoyed your post, it was quite compelling. Have you ever considered writing? Your post could easily be expanded into a very interesting short story. You should give it some thought. There are a few "special interest" magazines you could submit to, nursing mags and maybe even the readers digest. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I thought it was great.

nursbee04 · Mar 26, 2005

i'm curious, nursbee04, how does this charge nurse treat the nurses under her?

i can't really say firsthand. i work in the icu, i've never worked with her. i know she's not one for joking around and i've heard although she is soft spoken she is an iron-rule type.

btw, allamericangirl, what a beautiful post!

KRVRN, BSN, RN · Mar 26, 2005

One day I got floated from NICU up to the PP floor. I was supposed to only care for babies while another nurse cared for the moms. But I figured I could lend a hand and change the bed linens while a mom was in the shower.

I'm proud to say that it had been at least 5 years since I done so and I still remembered how to make a bed with beautiful mitered corners without a fitted sheet! And it only took me about 5 trips back and forth from one side of the bed to the other to do it too!

Embarrassed to add... I still made sure to put the pillowcase opening away from the door just like I learned back in school!

:rotfl:

LPNer · Mar 26, 2005

One day I got floated from NICU up to the PP floor. I was supposed to only care for babies while another nurse cared for the moms. But I figured I could lend a hand and change the bed linens while a mom was in the shower.
I'm proud to say that it had been at least 5 years since I done so and I still remembered how to make a bed with beautiful mitered corners without a fitted sheet! And it only took me about 5 trips back and forth from one side of the bed to the other to do it too!
Embarrassed to add... I still made sure to put the pillowcase opening away from the door just like I learned back in school!
:rotfl:

Good job! :balloons:

Have to admit, I had forgotten about the pillow case opening away from the door, but I'll tell you what, I want the pillow case to open to the back of my head so this is the way I always put it for my pts. Granted, I work nights and haven't changed an unoccupied bed in years so it is a little different. Straightned up a bunch while they were in the BR, but again, I leave the pillow pretty much the way they had it.