1950s nursing

LPNer · Mar 28, 2005

I don't have a reply I have a question. Does anyone think the whole nursing shortage starts in the schools, that alot of would be nurses are discouraged right from the begining by there instrutors in nursing school. I have had 5 clinical instuctors and only one of them has been professional. I have also talked to other students from different schools. We all say the same thing we are belittled, made to feel stupid, expected to be mind readers, If we are not quick enough, IVs grabbed out of our hands, asked questions about things we were never taught intimadated, screamed at, threatened. I think we better look at the beganing and where it all starts. I am trying to find some one to do an article on this is there anyone out there?

Yes, however, some of the things you complain about, such as being asked questions about things you were never taught is helpful to a student. It should be taken by you and your classmates as an understanding that no matter what we are taught, we are never taught all there is to know. Asking you questions like that, your instructors are hoping, will encourage you to learn more than they are telling you.

Some of the other things you mentioned are completely unprofessional and, I hate to say this, could be as much your interpretation of the intentions. Being screamed a is never OK and could be what casues you and your classmates to feel like everything they do/say is aimed at making you feel bad.

Hang in there, easy for me to say, but they won't be in your life forever. You can make it through this.

bcjams · Mar 28, 2005

I am still amazed at the lack of computers in hospitals for nursing staff to use. We had them ten years ago at my hospital and its wonderful to be able to read all relevant information without trying to decipher bad handwriting...I am looking in Austin texas for an ICU gig and so far 2 of the places I have interviewed still paper chart...I wonder where they keep the box of rattles to shake at the patients if they spike a temp.:rotfl:

Titiana · Mar 28, 2005

I don't have a reply I have a question. Does anyone think the whole nursing shortage starts in the schools, that alot of would be nurses are discouraged right from the begining by there instrutors in nursing school. I have had 5 clinical instuctors and only one of them has been professional. I have also talked to other students from different schools. We all say the same thing we are belittled, made to feel stupid, expected to be mind readers, If we are not quick enough, IVs grabbed out of our hands, asked questions about things we were never taught intimadated, screamed at, threatened. I think we better look at the beganing and where it all starts. I am trying to find some one to do an article on this is there anyone out there?

My first clinical instructor was amazing (if she wasn't I may of quit) and she said that the first day of clinical that when we became nurses to remember what it was like to be students because as she put it "we're eating our young" and that that attitudes like that are the reason that there is a nursing shortage. I am taking my secound year over because of failing d/t a nursing instructor that was unbelievable.

zacarias, ASN, RN · Mar 29, 2005

Titiana,

I wish I had a nursing instructor that told us that! The first day while we were all scared *%&$less the instructors told us that the most of us wouldn't make it....she didn't laugh after saying that either.

allamericangirl · Mar 29, 2005

:offtopic: :offtopic: :offtopic: I am very sorry that you are having problems. There are several threads where the nursing shortage is being discussed at length. This thread is supposed to be a discussion of Nursing in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Maybe you could share something about the topic. I would be very interested in hearing about it. :)

I don't have a reply I have a question. Does anyone think the whole nursing shortage starts in the schools, that alot of would be nurses are discouraged right from the begining by there instrutors in nursing school. I have had 5 clinical instuctors and only one of them has been professional. I have also talked to other students from different schools. We all say the same thing we are belittled, made to feel stupid, expected to be mind readers, If we are not quick enough, IVs grabbed out of our hands, asked questions about things we were never taught intimadated, screamed at, threatened. I think we better look at the beganing and where it all starts. I am trying to find some one to do an article on this is there anyone out there?

prmenrs, RN · Mar 29, 2005

And Heaven knows that topic has been DONE!

colrainrn · Mar 31, 2005

Thanks for keeping the thread on track and thanks to all have posted so far. I love hearing how things have changed. I ran across a file yesterday of a 92 yr old patient who was first hospitalized in 1946 with an appendicitis. How things have changed!!! The MD orders were all apothocary like "iss ".

The bedside notes were brief statements giving a minute by minute account of whats going on instead of shift summary in SOAP form. It was soooo interesting to see

Sean

webbiedebbie · Mar 31, 2005

I remember as a child in the 60's of going to the hospital with my parents to see my grandmother who had cancer. Of course, I did not know that then. My sister and I were told to wait in the waiting room. We had to spend hours there. We would often go into the gift shop and look at everything. We were escorted upstairs to grandma but only for a few minutes. We usually stood at the bedside and felt awkward. Then, we were briskly rushed out of the room to go back to the waiting room.

There was a person in the elevator that closed the gate and took you to the floor you wanted.

I remember the walls were green tiles and the floor was black and white specks. X-ray was in the basement. Everyone wore white.

In the 70's, candystripers were abundant. Passing and picking up food trays, reading to patients, making beds, etc.

As a "pink lady" in the 70's, I was responsible for doing the infant hearing screens and taking their pictures. I even got to feed and change the babies.

Yes, in the mid 1980's, we smoked in the break room, and the registration/admitting people were smoking at their desks!

My grandmother was a nurse in the 30's and I have her nursing licenses now. She even had a thermometer that was worn around the neck in a metal tube. She did some private duty nursing for a short while before getting out of nursing because she had 3 children to take care of w/o a husband. She could make more money not being a nurse.

Oh yea, in my grandmother's diaries, she writes that the doctor came to my house to give me penicillin because I had a fever.

Patients brought to the ER did not have IV's. Most were transported by volunteers who just drove the "ambulance".

PrettyPillz · Mar 31, 2005

I remember as a kid in the 70's going to the doctor and everything was sooo...clean! You don't see that now. The hospitals were very clean and polished as well. Noticed hardly any one of color practicing nursing or medicine. However I grew up in East Texas...may have something to do with it , huh?...I also recall while working as an aide in the 80's the there were smoking and non smoking rooms for patients per request. LVN's were allowed to be in upper management and DON's then also. Staff members were allowed to smoke on the unit then too in some areas. Remember the glass chest tube systems? Patients and family members had to follow the doctors orders and rules or be promptly discharged. The docs actually sat down and explained surgial procedures and got their own consents signed. And change of shift was ALWAYS on time! :uhoh3:

Liann · Mar 31, 2005

Some thoughts I had on reading this thread....

I went to Medical Technology school in 1982...yeah...its ancient history...and we were taught to do hemacytometer grid counts for CBC as well as the little dilution pipettes that you had to SUCK up on to make the dilution. What happens if you draw up too hard? YUM... Eventually we were issued little rubber tubing pipettor mouthpieces, but they were hard to use since you already learned the other way!

We did quite a lot of labor intense hand method chemistry tests. These would of course be cast aside to be replaced by multi analyzers before we even graduated.

Blood bank type and cross has become a bit more streamlined, but is still very similar to what I learned 20+ years ago.

BUT...I have been told that a lot of the old ways are still practiced in developing countries where analyzers are too expensive or require too much power to run.

I mentioned in another thread about good nursing reads that I enjoy books by Anne Perry who writes about a nurse in the 1860s who served in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale. Hester's nursing practice is fascinating to read...and her knowledge of herbal remedies is awesome. Nurses were also the pharmacists then, I guess!

apaisRN, RN, CRNA · Mar 31, 2005

The bedside notes were brief statements giving a minute by minute account of whats going on instead of shift summary in SOAP form. It was soooo interesting to see

Those poor nurses! It must have been a mind-numbing job. Next time I complain about a boring assignment I'll remember that. (I'm ICU and we're actually really good about ratios in my unit - so if I have two walkie-talkies waiting for floor beds I sit around hoping for a code or something interesting.)

prmenrs, RN · Mar 31, 2005

Liann: do you have the title of the book about the nurse in the Crimean? Thanks.