Hospital Corners - a reminiscence

[Anxious Patient]

A nurse recalls her training 50 years ago.

Today, Miss Coyle, the instructor, would show us the correct way to make the hospital bed.

"Now you anchor the bottom sheet by making the hospital corner," she said, "lifting the sheet about eighteen inches from the side of the bed and folding it at a right angle, then tucking it in."

Miss Coyle worked briskly, creating the perfect hospital corner in one elegant maneuver as I struggled to match her words to her nimble movements.

When she'd finished, the bed looked perfect. Only the boldest patient, I thought, would dare to disturb it.

Now each of us would demonstrate our technique.

"Miss Murphy," Miss Coyle said, directing me to the bed.

My heart pounded furiously.

As I fumbled helplessly, the rubber sheet slipped and slid, and the crisp white sheets grew damp and wrinkled in my perspiring hands. In the end, all I could manage was to bunch the bottom sheet into clumsy little clumps beneath the mattress, just as I'd always done, and my mother before me.

At last, Miss Coyle put a restraining hand on my shoulder and addressed the class. "Manual dexterity," she said, with a puckered smile, "is an essential requirement for a nurse."

With a rush of shame, I put my hands behind my back; they felt enormous and useless. I looked at Miss Coyle's small, sturdy ones--capable, no doubt, of wonders.

After class I brooded over the phrase "manual dexterity." Could one acquire it, or was it an inborn trait? Alone in the room I despaired of ever making a proper bed.

(rest of the story)

http://www.pulsemagazine.org/Archive_Index.cfm?content_id=195

[Hygiene Queen]

What?

Miss Coyle didn't bounce a quarter off the bed?

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

It'd be great if that's all we had to worry about in the world of nursing today! And I STILL make my hospital corners - it's the only way to make a real bed!

[LadyinScrubs, ASN, RN]

A nurse recalls her training 50 years ago.

This brings back an incident many decades ago (a little less than 50 years ago). I was in 5th grade and my grandmother had just married a widow with grandchildren. My grandparents, me and two new female cousins went out of town over Spring vacation.

Years passed, and only recently did I have the opportunity to talk to these cousins. They still remembered me and the trip--especially because their mother was a nurse and taught them how to make up a bed--complete with hospital corners. On the other hand, my grandmother taught me to let the bed "air out" for a while before making it up. The cousins were horrified that I did not immediately make up the bed and apply hospital square corners.

The things that kids remember...

[elkpark]

I grew up in a household where my mother was an RN and my father had been an RN before he went to medical school later on -- I was an adult living on my own out in the world before I found out there was any other way to make a bed beside "hospital corners"!

(And I still use them -- I'm with Carol, that's the only way to make a real bed!)

[netglow, ASN, RN]

I hospital corner my bed at home :sofahider

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

I do too. It infuriates me when someone else makes the bed and just squishes the sheet under the mattress.

[rnsrgr8t]

I hospital corner my bed at home :sofahider

So do I!!!!!

[blackbird singing]

Haha this thread is awesome. I hospital corner at home, too.

[Hygiene Queen]

I was the fastest bed maker in the Midwest.

Tight sheets and sharp corners.

I could pull off a bedspread and have it folded and draped across the back of a chair perfectly and I did it so fast it would make your head spin.

Fussy fussy fussy, but everyone knew which rooms were mine just by how perfect they were. It was a mark of pride in my work.

People still remember me, many years later, because of how picky I was.

Sure, it was all aesthetics, but the residents/pts were happy to dive into a nice tidy bed in a nice tidy room.

I still won't bring a pt to a sloppy bed. I have to fix it first!

[RoyalPrince]

Life's too short....I don't have OCD and never bothered to make a hospital bed that way. If the sheets are tucked and patient is OK on them, I smile and worry about 999 other things to get through my shift.