Let's play I Remember When.....

I went to nursing school at the age of 40, and have been in nursing just 5 years now. I have spent 4 years on an acute floor in a hospital, and one year as a case manager for a Hospice and Palliative Care org. Both were very disappointing, since my hopes for nursing were so far from the reality in both.
The only way to reconcile my standards with what was expected was to stay on my own time for both jobs and do what needed to be done, and I found that most any decent nurse found herself doing that. To those of you who have seen it all, I ask, do you think the pendulum will never swing back again? God Bless.

I remember cutdowns and caps, and backrubs for management of the back pain that inevitably accompanied having to lie in those uncomfortable hospital beds! I remember MOM and merthiolate mixed and placed on bedsores used in conjunction with heatlamps qd (hey, it worked!!) LPNs had to give up their chairs to RNs, and RNs had to give up their chairs to the docs. I remember opening and closing charts and q2h rounds and notes in between. I remember RNs as bedside nurses with LPNs as medication nurses (boy, was THAT nice!) and I remember having the time to take GOOD care of my patients. I remember comforting families without having to also deal with the reality of having fifteen other things that I needed to have done within 5 minutes of leaving the room. I remember nurses being treated with some respect by the community, when "making a nurse" meant something, as in, "She made a nurse" (old country speak for "she became a nurse") - when it was something you could be proud of and you weren't regarded so much as a servant but as a caregiver.

The good old days.

Babs

[This message has been edited by babs_rn (edited December 27, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by babs_rn (edited December 27, 2000).]

This is great! I graduated in 1971. Worked in a Catholic hospital, you wore a skirt and white nylons. Could not wear pants until 1974. I worked in Peds and did use clysis many times for dehydtration. what about those ice mattresses? Glass thermometers?
Christmas only the very sickest were in the hospital. Then for New Years all the chronic kids, with disabilities were admitted to give parents a rest.

I remember using fetoscopes (those strange looking devices that look vaguely like a stethescope with a metal band that went from the forehead to the back of your head to conduct the sound) to check fetal heart tones, giving pre-delivery shave preps and enemas, and watching physicians using forceps MUCH more often. When I first graduated, I worked in high risk antenatal and L&D, and I remember spending a tremendous amount of time with patients--getting to know them, their families, and being able to sit down and teach them about pregnancy. I have a shoebox full of letters and cards that I have received from patients over the years, which, when I feel down about being a nurse in this era, I pull out and read to help remind me why I do what I do every day. Many of the cards are over 15-20 years old, but it keeps me in touch with the primary reasons I became a nurse, and why I am so proud to be a member of this profession.

".....to know one life has breathed easier because you have lived....this is to have succeeded."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

To those of you who mentioned stainless steel bedpans.... WE STILL USE THEM!!! I work in a small rural hospital that has decided it's cheaper to sterilize than to use plastic. Never mind patient comfort. Also to the nurse who mentioned shave preps and enemas before delivery... still done at a nearby hospital for one of the older doc. Just when you think things have progressed....... Another thing we still use that are out of date... water manonometers for subclavian lines. On occasion we have also used cantor tubes.. you know, the ones with mercury.. Once we dc'd a cantor tube that no longer had any mercury in it!!! Talk about looks across the room!!! Fortunately the patient had no ill effects that I know of. I'm looking forward to my hospital entering the 1990's LOL

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I wonder how many outdated practises and others that have shown by research to be ineffective are still being used.
Oh well, this is supposed to be a fun thread.
Glass everything, from thermometers,reuseable syringses, gomco suctions and chest tube three bittle systems that were really bottles.

Great choice of topic! Graduated in 1974. remeber all those things posted. Remember cotton swabs with alcohol in a cup instead of swabs, writing out diet and condition sheets every shift,
actually having time to spend with a dying patient and their family, teaching a diabetic all they need to know in a week instead of a day or two
actually teaching students instead of being glad they can take some pt care off your hands, hand holding tube feedings, instead of pumps, counting and calculating IV drip rates,instead of setting up an IMED pump.yes I remember clysis well! Some things are better, like actually understanding what lab tests mean, able to make your own judgements without calling the MD (especially in a critical care setting),pleurovacs,pulse oximeters, auto B/P cuffs etc

I graduated from an ADN school in 1976, 5 months pregnant with my second child. I worked med-surg until he was born, then 6 weeks later I started working L & D, and have been there since. I remember NEVER wearing gloves for anything, and having some weird sense of accomplishment when up to my elbows in blood after a delivery!

I also remember when labor patients actually gave a rip about their care instead of choosing a hospital by the "freebies" the hospital offered.

I also remember having head nurses who were older than I was, had actual bedside experience instead of the one I now have--young with very little nursing experience, no managerial experience, and no inclination to find out what us old broads know.

I trained in a hospital in New Zealand in the early 70's, and much that has been said I recall. What about walking up one side of the corridor so as not to impede foot-traffic? And standing aside so a more senior person could enter the room first? We bathed the babies between 9 - 10 am, wrapped them and poked them in bundles into pigeon holes on a big trolley. At 10am we pushed the trolley through the maternity ward and handed the babies out for the scheduled feed (30 or so at a time). Our hospital would only employ married house-surgeons, as the only single one they tried (?when) got a theatre nurse pregnant - meaning the end of her career no doubt!

We also use the stainless steel bed pans and cantor tubes with mercury in them, I can't believe that we are even allowed to use this anymore, it is so unsafe.

I would live to get my hospital in to the 20th century (at least), it is very frustrating.