Do you remember?

Nurses General Nursing

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  • allnurses Guide
    Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Take off from the "'I've been a nurse since..." - great thread by the way!!

Do you remember card catalogs? Having to search the stacks for hard copies of articles to back up your papers.

Professor refusing papers with white out on the typing, so what you did was get it looking right, then copy it so no white out.

The first time you wore white jeans instead of polyester, had a visitor exclaiming "they let you wear jeans?!", I replied well they are white!

The incentive spirometer went from room to room, each pt had their own mouthpiece. Ours was a clown, had to get the level to go up all his buttons on the front. Adult medsurg!

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Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN

6 Articles; 11,658 Posts

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Nooo! Not the card catalogs and hard copy articles that I had to wait for days to come from other schools' libraries! Okay, so I'm not really that old, but do remember those particular aspects. We had a very extensive online journal catalog, but we were limited to using only one electronic resource; the rest had to be found the old fashioned way.

White-out wasn't for typed papers (yay for word processing software even if it wasn't yet Microsoft Word!) but for those handwritten assignments with errors.

I wear jeans to work every day- but then I have to change into OR scrubs. But I never wear white. Have seen some of the nurses wear white or even blue jeans when I was a student and it was casual Friday. I personally would never wear non-work designated clothing to do patient care.

That last one I can safely say I've never seen.

Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Anybody remember using punchcards for patient charges??? In a hospital system that was very proud that they were among the first to 'automate' the supply system for patient billing. Sadly, they were still using it well into the '90s when they finally upgraded to a more modern system.

Remember being told NOT to wear gloves unless absolutely necessary because it gave a very negative message to the patient? srsly.

Trauma Columnist

traumaRUs, MSN, APRN

88 Articles; 21,249 Posts

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Remember standing up when the doctor walked on the floor?

Smoking with the doctor and pts at the nurses station?

Sterilizing bedpans in the "hopper?"

duskyjewel

1,335 Posts

Specializes in hospice.
Remember standing up when the doctor walked on the floor?

No wonder so many of them ended up with god complexes. Blech. Thank goodness those days are over!

sharpeimom

2,452 Posts

Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

Not only do I remember card catalogues, I miss them! Would you believe we have a card catalogue wooden cube (?) between our recliners? We use it as a table between our chairs plus those little drawers are perfect for all that stuff that accumulates otherwise.

Bedpan hoppers? Yep, I remember those too.

Glass IV bottles. I dropped one once.

I remember when pills, tablets, etc. came 500 and 1000 to a big bottle.

I remember my slip rustling under my uniform.

I remember standing up for the doctor, then giving him my chair. I also remember the time the older female orthopedist said, when I began to get up, "Stay put, Honey. You must be as tired as I am." What! Physians just don't do that.

I remember trips to other floors to track down more metal bedpans, urinal, emesis basins, etc.

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