You know you're Old School when...

[snoopy29]

Oh dear I really have set myself off on a trip down memory lane!! Recently a doctor called me "very old school" I think it was meant as a complement but unsurprisingly I was horrified but to be fair when I look back so many things have changed so.... so you know your old school when you remember......

Metal bed pans that had to be washed in the bedpan washer. Kind nurses used to warm them with hot water as they were freezing cold and would have patients hopping off the bed :)

Female nurses only being allowed to wear dresses and hats. The number of stripes on your hat indicated how long you had been training and when qualified you got a cotton one with lace trim. Evil things they were you used to spend half your life pinning them back as confused patients knocked them off

Unless you were married you had to live in the nurses home whilst training. Lights were meant to be out by 11pm and the house mother used to do spot checks on the rooms to make sure no men were hidden away!!!!:redbeathe Once a month an army bus used to come and pick all the student nurses up and take them back to the barracks were 300 army boys were waiting for a free disco, free food, free drink and far to much free love :)

We were not allowed to tell patients our first name and were called Student Nurse Smith. When a patient died we would dress them in a shroud, put a flower in their folded hands and then they would e wrapped in a sheet. A window would be left open to allow their soul to leave. They would go off to Rose Cottage, never called the mortuary. The nurse in charge would always say "there be 2 more before the week's out" as in those days people only ever died in threes!!!!

The wards were long open plan called Nightingale wards. 15 patients down each side. We had a back trolley and every two hours would work our way up and down the ward turning and cahnging every patient. We used to rub something onto pressure areas but I can't remember what it was. If you had lots of dependent patients then it was like painting the forth bridge - as soon as you had finished it was time to go round again!!! At Christmas a huge tree would be delivered and we would decorate the beds with tinsel - wouldn't be allowed today becuase of infection risks.

Consultant ward rounds were like a royal visit. They occured at the same time on set days. The Consultant would only talk with the Sister and you were expected to have every pt in bed, sheet folded to middle of the chest looking tidy!!!!! Never figured out how to make a pt look tidy.

Getting your silver nurses buckle was like a right of passage. As soon as you got your results from your final exams the whole set headed off to the only jewellers that stocked buckles and chose their badge. I still wear mine but it's fair to say the belt is notably bigger

Male nurses and female doctors were rare. Now in my department we have more male nurses than female definitely a change for the better.

We took temperatures with a glass mercury filled thermometer covered in a disposable plastic cover and BP's were taken with a manual syphg and stethescope.

I am sure there are more but please other old school nurses share your memories with me :)

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

I remember when blood bags were hung without pumps. You just timed them. One drop per 5 seconds. Of course some positional IV really made it difficult to keep on track.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

Maybe someone already said it - IV bottles were glass and IV needles were metal. A few years back, a young nurse look at me as if I had 2 heads when I said that I was better at starting IV's when our IV needles were metal and left indwelling.

Some things have not changed for the better. Subordinate staff, that is, the aides, lived in fear of the RN. Not that we want people necessarily afraid of us, but it was much better when the aides realized that the RN was actually in charge and there'd be consequences to pay for the aide who challenged that. Things were better when more military-like.

Now, anything goes because managers are afraid to discipline or even correct. Managers and Administrators fear c/o racism or genderism or religionism, so refuse to make problem employees shape up or ship out. I"m not saying there weren't problems or unfairness, but there are today, too, no matter how fair and reasonable we all try to be. Anyone who's upset today can utter the right word or 2 and bring Management to its knees, whether justified or not.

Hospitals were into real customer service and we didn't need Press-Ganey to show us the right way to do things. We gave correct nursing care and somehow achieved the same goals.

[RNperdiem, RN]

Stretchers were lighter and look flimsy by today's standards. The reminded me of ironing boards on wheels.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

The baby bus that came rolling down from the nursery to the postpartum unit , with room for 10 babies all wailing to be fed on schedule. Moms were made to do 10am, 2pm and 8pm care, otherwise they could leave the babies with the nurses because they needed their rest.

Working an isolation unit without disposable gloves. Having immune suppressed patients and contagious rooms side by side and with the same nurse. We handwashed religiously after coming out of every room, every time. And had the lowest infection rate in the hospital.

[luvRNs, BSN, MSN, RN]

Love this thread !! You know you're old school when:

IV's were hung in 'series sets'. All IV's for 24 hours were hung with IV sets connecting one to the other, and all were glass bottles !

Pulmonary edema was treated by 'rotating tournequits' on three of the four limbs to decrease venous return.....:)

Dressings were not individually wrapped and the sterile utility room had large stainless containers. Forceps were used to remove what you needed for a dressing

You started IV's with your bare hands.

Cardiac monitoring was done by attaching metal electrodes to the chest held by a large rubber strap :redbeathe

All drugs on the 'code cart' had to be hand mixed on the spot

A routine assignment on "PM's" was a wing of 21 patients assisted by an LPN and aide

"orientation" was one or two shifts, and about 1 day of class.....

Everyone got backrubs.... ( why did we stop this??)

There was no unit dose, INCLUDING narcotics. All meds were poured for the WHOLE wing and placed on a tray. ( they were labeled with cards)

All dosages were CALCULATED by the RN.

IV pumps were rare....

Still, we got it done, and we gave GOOD care !!

[KY RN]

.....

[KY RN]

Ruby Vee, this should still be a standing order.:yeah:" Valium 10 mg PO q 4 hrs PRN."

[jlcole45]

String of cups -- each time the pt voided following surgery he would do it in a cup and we would line them up in order and you could see the decrease in the amount of blood in the urine, other then that I'm not sure why they had us do it.

[Midwest4me]

[quote name=mustlovepoodles. sitting in a cold room with a premie, waiting for death--no milk, no cuddling allowed. [/quote]

how totally sad(and unkind)that had to have been. glad i didn't work peds back then; never could've done that.

anyone remember using granulex spray on decubs? gosh, i sure do. it had an oddly reassuring smell....wonder if it's even made anymore....

we used "bag balm"(came in a green square tin originally intended for cow teets) on most all incontinent pts--worked great-as long as the nurses and aides were faithfully applying it! the urine just ran right off the butts with that stuff on it---like water that beads up on a freshly waxed car!

i also recall the "painting" (i.e.,use of milk of magnesia then applying the heat lamp after taping the buttocks either to the side rail or up on to itself)--in fact, i recall how aghast i was when i watched the rn i worked with train me to do that treatment. it worked though!

[CT Pixie, BSN, RN]

Oh I remember Granulex and the smell!!

[Moogie]

Some things have not changed for the better. Subordinate staff, that is, the aides, lived in fear of the RN. Not that we want people necessarily afraid of us, but it was much better when the aides realized that the RN was actually in charge and there'd be consequences to pay for the aide who challenged that. Things were better when more military-like.

Now, anything goes because managers are afraid to discipline or even correct. Managers and Administrators fear c/o racism or genderism or religionism, so refuse to make problem employees shape up or ship out. I"m not saying there weren't problems or unfairness, but there are today, too, no matter how fair and reasonable we all try to be. Anyone who's upset today can utter the right word or 2 and bring Management to its knees, whether justified or not.

I don't know. I've never been able to intimidate anyone, CNA or CNO, no matter how hard I have tried.

Seriously, when I was a newbie nurse, the nursing assistants often refused to listen to the nurses because they were unionized. I still remember a nursing assistant who took her union-permitted fifteen minute break in the afternoon when the rest of us were all going to be late because we'd been short staffed. She refused to walk a couple of patients because it was time for her break.

If I wanted a military-type environment, I would have joined the service.

Hospitals were into real customer service and we didn't need Press-Ganey to show us the right way to do things. We gave correct nursing care and somehow achieved the same goals.

Amen to that! We achieved patient, er, customer satisfaction because we delivered good care, not because we had some pointy-haired administrator telling us that we needed to focus on making sure everyone had a cold drink and a warm blanket (oh, and by that I mean the visitors, not the patient!)

I miss what nursing used to be.

[dianah, ASN]

Post-partum sitz baths. :D

Cleaning the sitz bath before and after.

A "black-and-white" = milk of mag and cascara

Or, petrogalar (smelled good!)