You Know You're an Old(er) Nurse If . . .

Nurses General Nursing

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You know you're an older nurse if:

1. You remember working with nurses who wore caps. :nurse:

2. You remember nurses (and doctors) sitting at the nurses station drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while charting. :smokin:

3. You remember when charting was done (handwritten) in 3 different colors (black or blue for day shift, green for evening shifts, red for night shift).

4. You remember when IV fluids came only in glass bottles.

5. You remember when breast milk wasn't a biohazard. :redlight:

6. You remember when chest tube setups consisted of glass bottles, rubber stoppers, and tubing.

7. You remember when white polyester uniforms were the standard for nurses.

8. You remember when you'd have given your eye teeth for a comfortable pair of nursing shoes (we haven't always been able to wear athletic shoes).

9. You remember when the hospital's top nurse was the director of nursing and not the chief nursing officer.

10. You remember giving lots of IM shots for pre-ops and pain meds.

What else?

HollyVK (with patient care experience going back to 1972) :gandalf:

Specializes in Medical Telemetry, LTC,AlF, Skilled care.
I thought I was an older nurse (59) until I read The Sinai Nurse (1852-2000). I couldn't believe what nursing was like in the 1800's. Leeches used to stop bleeds, third year diploma school nurses being the head nurse with a second year student being the asst. head nurse, being taught by doctors because there were hardly any graduate nurses, and young nurses losing their lives from flu epidemics. Most of your schooling was working in the hospital, and that was it. I now feel so much younger.

We had a pt back in October that we had to apply leeches to a wound on her face, the best part is that the nurses kept the jar of leeches in the refrigerator in the break room :lol2: watch what you grab!

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
I remember the RN spilling mercury on the desk and these little beads of it rolling around everywhere. We had to gather up the mercury and then it all stayed together and she pushed it back into the bottle. I think she was putting the mercury in a dobhoff tube for weight. I was watching her do this and I think the mercury got on her wedding band and ate the gold off of her ring.. Does this sound correct? This was alot of years ago. I was an LPN so was just watching her.

The mercury just temporarily coated the ring turning it "silver." That happened to me once when I was cleaning up a broken glass thermometer.

I don't remember what we did with it but nobody was particularly concerned about the mercury.

I also remember playing with a bottle of mercury in chemistry lab in high school.

From now on, when I forget things, I'm going to blame it on the mercury! :lol2: :lol2:

We had a pt back in October that we had to apply leeches to a wound on her face, the best part is that the nurses kept the jar of leeches in the refrigerator in the break room :lol2: watch what you grab!

I work an ortho unit where we get finger replants all the time. Our leeches are kept in the pharmacy. I have become quite good at leech wrangling. There is nothing like a 4 finger revasc with continuous leeches to improve your leech handling skills.:lol2:

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
I remember using an 18 ga needle to poke a hole in something (nifepidine?) in order to administer the liquid sublingually to get a BP down fast.

someone else mentioned Theophylline drips.

rolling meds carts that you used a pack mule to load up so you would have everything you could possibly think of before starting on your long journey down the hall.

scalp needles for IVs in peds with a paper cups taped to their heads- they looked like they were going to a birthday celebration with their little party hats on.

night shift writing in red and day shift in black.

HHH enemas

when AIDS patients became emaciated and died a horrible undignified death

hearing the pharmacy tech over the PA system saying "Narcotic keys to the desk, please. Narcotic keys to the desk" Guess he needed to reload the metal double lock box.

Peri-lights for episiotomies that looked like something from outer space

whiskey at the nurses station to prevent DTs

flushing EVERY peripheral line "saline lock" with heparin- I still call them heplocks!

the metal contraption that you used to screw the syringe into place in order to administer the med- can't think of the name of it.

AZT listed in my drug book as a "new" drug.

No fitted sheets- two flat sheets were used and tied under the bed at the top and the bottom. Also, making sure the seam of the sheet was facing down so it wouldn't irritate the skin

You know what's really awful about this thread is the implication that so many of these things are "antiquated" - but it seems like "just yesterday" that I was doing those things!

Can you hear the "old lady quaver" in my voice saying "back in MY day..." Gee, I think I ought to buy that cemetary plot now... If they still HAVE those! LOL

As to the whiskey at the nurses' station, that made me laugh - was the whiskey for the PATIENTS or the NURSES' DT's?

(sorry, I couldn't resist...)

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..

You wanted to be like Dixie McCall RN

HA HA HA!~

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..

...This is fun. I may remember some more.

Call bells were really BELLS. You had to figure out which room it came from.

LONG LIST! Lots of hard work! And we think our workload is tough NOW!

I remember the RN spilling mercury on the desk and these little beads of it rolling around everywhere. We had to gather up the mercury and then it all stayed together and she pushed it back into the bottle. I think she was putting the mercury in a dobhoff tube for weight. I was watching her do this and I think the mercury got on her wedding band and ate the gold off of her ring.. Does this sound correct? This was alot of years ago. I was an LPN so was just watching her.

used to play with mercury in dads old tool chest to keep us entertained while we was kids- fun breaking it aprt and putting it back together olol.

something i learned and still use with sensitive patients skin are montgomery straps ( thinks that what they were called lol)

Specializes in Brain injury,vent,peds ,geriatrics,home.
i know i'm old -- i remember most of them, too!

cleaned up the messiest stool without gloves, and didn't even panic about it -- just washed my hands and carried on.

actually did mouth-to-mouth on my patients. had one vomit in my mouth, but went ahead and did it on the next patient to arrest on me anyway.

hand crank beds -- the first electric bed i ever saw i played with until i put the attached iv pole through a flourescent light by accident. (that was spectacular!)

putting maalox on bedsores.

offering doctors your seat when they came into the nurse's station.

mannitol in 50cc glass ampules -- they came up to the unit with a file taped to the ampule. first you heated them gently on the stove to warm them up and dissolve the contents, then you filed them open with the file! and if you warmed them too quickly, they exploded.

paraldehyde -- anyone else remember chasing their patients around the unit, begging them to take their medicine before the cup dissolved?

doesnt it amaze you that we never got sick????we never wore gloves.

Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
doesnt it amaze you that we never got sick????we never wore gloves.

we were lucky. or blessed!

Yes,I remember all that. I did dialysis on a pt who had a machine at home and was told I could wear gloves if I wanted to!! The gloves were there but I didn't feel the need and didn't think I could work with gloves on. Of course,now I use gloves all the time. Also, I sometimes work with nurses who are younger than my granddaughter! AND one of the last times I recerted for CPR,the instructor brought half mannequins that we could put on a table to save our knees.

Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

I got the matching tote-bag to this shirt!!

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