Do you/ did you have a Nurses Cap? Pin?

RE posted frroom Namebadge thread:
To Brandy re caps:

Nursing caps evolved from a time when many women wore head scarves while inside their home doing domestic chores. They evolved over the years in several ways from my memory.

Some schools granted smaller student caps after completing probationary period or introductory nursing arts course. At Graduation from program/school you would receive the standard size cap. Other schools had one style of cap: you would get a different colored stripe based on educational level/year completed (most had three stripes). Final black stripe indicated you were a graduate nurse.

Caps came in many different styles and different materials like organdy, which required starch and ironing weekly or cotton, wool etc.! Some were pleated, others straight as seen in todays nursing silouettes.

A Presbyterain Hospital, Philadelphia nurse could be picked out instantly for their cap was unique in our area: instead of being round, it was oval with DOUBLE pleats: top and bottom side of cap. (and a b...h to clean and iron my friend stated).

Here is a link to pictorials of caps at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nursing Museum.
You can also check out some individual schools caps on left side links there.
http://www.son.wisc.edu/alumni/histo...llections.html

http://www.son.wisc.edu/alumni/histo...caps/caps.html

Here is links to current cap companies :
Kays Caps ( the best!)
http://www.kayscaps.com/caps.htm


Also found the travel trunk(seems more costume like).
http://www.traveltrunk.com/hatsandcaps.htm

SO....nurses have ALWAYS had a way to distinguish themselves from student to graduate and school to school. Some schools were noted to be top knotch and I can remeber a patient telling me he only wanted Presby or PGH nurses caring for him..." their care is great, they know what they're doing." Patients could tell the better prepared nurses, (after repeat hospitalizations) by their caps.

NOW we have Nursing pins and ID bages with credentials that tell us who we are and what lengths we've gone to educate ourselves about the nursing profession...an informed consumer will expect the best, most experienced person to care for themself. We have a NEW, somewhat less visable way of promoting ourselves but just as important.

Just graduated from LPN school last month, and have both a cap and pin. The pin is the school insignia - a medical cross encircled with a ribbon bearing the school's name.

The cap was a touchy subject with my class. Quite a few students didn't want to wear one for graduation. They prefered the standard mortar board graduation cap. The faculty had the last say and the traditional nurses hat won. Thank goodness! Ours is the classic nurse design, with a light blue horizontal stripe.

I might be a rebel and wear mine to work. (Still confidently waiting to get my board results!) If not every day, then at least for Nurse's Week. I earned the privilege, after all! Lucky for me though - my hospital enforces standard uniforms for all staff but RN's and LPN's. Even nursing assistants must wear the same ugly mint green colored scrubs. Sounds like other hospitals are more relaxed with staff uniforms. Shame on them!

Shark

I Had A Cap And Pin. Lost The Pin In 2 Weeks.

I did hospital training for my enrolled nurse qualification (similar to LPN). Our graduation ceremony involved saying a pledge and holding candles, we lit each others. Our badges were really different, red and gold with a picture of the hospital, goodness knows how they did it, but it was actually quite nice! And no, there were no caps. The last day I was at the hospital, I handed my uniforms in to the laundry, I think my grad badge was on that, because it was never seen again. It had a number on the back, ie I was EN no. xxx to have graduated from my hospital (sniff)

When I did my registered nurse training, we could buy our badges. No one wears them. When I finished my first year graduate programme, I received a badge for that. The rotten thing broke.

So I've ended up with nothing...

We never had any caps for school
and I think I received a pin at graduation but I have it put up somewhere.

just not sure where right now with the move to a different state and most of my stuff still back in IL.

maybe I will find it this summer when we move the rest of our stuff to NV.

Another historical tidbit -- every nursing cap, no matter what its finished shape, can be unfolded into a flat piece of cloth; the origin of this was that they could, in an emergency, be unfolded and used as a bandage or tourniquet (yes, they were originally intended to be a practical accessory).

I received both a cap and pin -- we wore our caps every clinical day throughout school, and could be identified by the stripes; freshman had no stripe, juniors had a velvet ribbon stripe in the school's "color" (light blue), and seniors had the coveted black stripe. (I not only still have my caps, I still have the two strips of velvet ribbon, light blue and black, that were my stripes.) Graduates had no stripes.

My career has been mostly in psych nursing, so I have spent most of my career wearing street clothes. However, when I'm in situations that call for "whites," I still wear real whites (not scrubs), white hose, and (very proudly) my cap. I always wear my pin with uniforms or a lab coat (I've taught nursing on and off over the years, so I'm often in situations that call for street clothes with a lab coat).

Caps were not even an option when I graduated. Pins were, but I didn't want to spend my money on one.

i did have both a cap and a pin, hated both of them
i remember the cape, when i was a little girl there was a nurse who rode the city bus in little rock, ark and she wore a navy blue cape every morning in the winter
hadn't thought of that in years

I had both cap and pin. The cap had a tall brim and if two of us bent over a bed from opposite sides they were sure to be knocked off. It is now living in it's case in the closet somewhere. My pin was spendy so wear only on rare days. It's oval with the school name and year the hospital opened; has a small chain and another smaller round pin that says BSN in the center of a Maltese cross.

Thanks for bringing back a memory from my childhood. I remember seeing nurses with the caps and the navy blue capes. I was very impressed by them. I actually used to play dress up by tying this blue sweater I had around my neck and making a nurses "hat" out of a piece of paper hahahaha.

On the other hand when I was hospitalized as a child I remember one nurse Ratchet type and her cap with it's big broad black stripe very well. She struck terror in the hearts of every child on that unit just from walking down the hallway. In fact she didn't do anything cruel to any of us she just looked mean.

I wouldn't want to wear a cap every day like they used to do but I wouldn't mind wearing one the day I graduate. (just for tradition's sake)