Been nursing for half a century!

*leslie :-D* · Aug 28, 2008, 11:52 PM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

my goodness...
you truly belong in the nursing hall of fame.
keep it going, miss daisees.

leslie

lyceeboo · Aug 29, 2008, 01:31 AM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

That's wonderful and inspiring!

And I love your photo, Nurse.

Daisees · Aug 29, 2008, 03:59 AM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Originally Posted by BlueHenRN

AWESOME! Congratulations!
And, by the way, I love to hear how nursing "used to be." Could you delight me with some anecdotes about nursing during the Eisenhower administration?
~Jess

Not exactly - I live in the UK!! Plus which he was president 53-61.

However, I could tell you the following snippets as pertains to the UK (or Great Britain as it was then known!)

- sterilising in theatres and wards was achieved by immersing items in a tank of boiling water for 20 mins!

- IV sets were lengths of red rubber tubing and a glass drip chamber which had to be assembled by hand (after boiling!) said rubber tubing was used many many times!

- IV cannulae were metal needles which mostly had to be stitched in place or they'd fall out

- all IV fluids including blood came in glass bottles, great fun if the drip stand was pulled over - ever had to mop up 540mls of blood?!

- post op patients were not allowed to even hang their legs over the side of the bed until their stitches had been removed which was often 10 days for major op - weak muscles and even DVT or PE were the order of the day

- in the operating theatre, nurses had to wash the surgeon's gloves and test them for pin holes by ballooning them with water and see if they leaked! They could often be used 4 or 6 times each. When holes were found they were repaired with a bicycle puncture kit and sent to the wards for PR exams

- syringes were glass with metal ends and hypodermic needles were metal and invariably leaked! Most wards had maybe 4 or 6 syringes in use at any one time so you'd have to wash and sterilize them before you could treat the next patient.

- when hypodermic needles got blunt we would sharpen them on an oil stone kept by the sterilizer! poor patients!

- on the subject of oil stones, as a theatre sister I used to sharpen all the osteotomes! (and since I was trained by the local championship-holding cutler, mine were the best in the business, let me tell you)

- sutures were bought in large reels and we had to wind lengths onto sewing machine reels. There was a technique to knotting them so they didn't undo.

- catgut was used to close gut and muscle and came in glass tubes which had to be snapped on the trolley during the op - needle stick injuries from the glass shards were commonplace!

- swab gauze came in huge drums which the nurses had to be cut, fold and tie in bundles of 10.

- linen, including drapes and gowns, came from the laundry to be checked for needed repairs, repaired and then folded by the nurses

- all linen and swabs were loaded into metal sterilizing drums which had a movable shields. Both shield and drum had perforations to allow the steam in but when the cycle was finished the porter would have to pull the rack out of the autoclave and leave it to cool down before he could rotate the shields to close the perforations! Since the autoclaves were invariably in the boiler room or basement, the environment was not exactly pristine!

I could go on

and on

and on

You know what us old folks are like!

*BlueHenRN* · Aug 29, 2008, 03:04 PM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Originally Posted by Daisees

Not exactly - I live in the UK!! Plus which he was president 53-61.

Well, we still call the era Victoria was Queen Victorian times, even in the US. And fifty years ago WAS during said time period. But I digress.

Originally Posted by Daisees

You know what us old folks are like!

Old is in your mind, my dear! And I wouldn't complain at all if you went on and on! Thank you so much for that! No one in my family before me has been involved in health care, so I don't know much about what nursing used to be like.
Again, THANKS!!!!
~Jess

Penguin_Love · Sep 01, 2008, 01:16 PM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Hasn't anyone else noticed what I noticed?

She's 67....which means she was 17 when she started! Which means she was 13 when she started training!

Is that true?? Or...did I just misunderstand?

If this is true....that is absolutely amazing!!!!

I didn't know people were allowed to start studying so young back then!
I am really jealous! But, of course...at that age, I wasn't really mature enough AT ALL! lol

Did I misunderstand? Or is it really true that you were that young?

Congratulations!

RN1989 · Sep 01, 2008, 01:50 PM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Originally Posted by Penguin_Love

Hasn't anyone else noticed what I noticed?

She's 67....which means she was 17 when she started! Which means she was 13 when she started training!

Is that true?? Or...did I just misunderstand?

If this is true....that is absolutely amazing!!!!

I didn't know people were allowed to start studying so young back then!
I am really jealous! But, of course...at that age, I wasn't really mature enough AT ALL! lol

Did I misunderstand? Or is it really true that you were that young?

Congratulations!

Is it really that amazing? I was an RN at 19. There are people who go to college early.

Penguin_Love · Sep 01, 2008, 03:25 PM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

I've known people that start college at 17....that's common-place. But....13? I was just saying that I didn't know people could start training in such a demanding field at that young of an age back then.

*BlueHenRN* · Sep 01, 2008, 10:26 PM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Originally Posted by Penguin_Love

Hasn't anyone else noticed what I noticed?

She's 67....which means she was 17 when she started! Which means she was 13 when she started training!

Is that true?? Or...did I just misunderstand?

I have friends who graduated high school from a vo-tech and then sat for their NCLEX-PNs. I was 17 when I graduated from high school, so I could have been an LPN at 17.
~Jess

Daisees · Sep 02, 2008, 04:51 AM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Then as now, the minimum training age in the UK was 18. This was the day I started work as a nurse - as 'pre training' nurse. Did a year at that then started training in 1959, qualified in 1962.

Actually, due to ignorance on the part of my father and the matron's failure to check, I presented myself at the hospital for training the day before as required and was then my date of birth was revealed. The matron was fantastic. Knowing I had packed up and left my home to travel 250 miles for this, she simply picked up the phone and spoke with her opposite number in another local hospital fixed for me to work there for the next year! Even then, I was technically too young as I started training on the 1st September and my birth date is the 17th. But she managed to fudge it over somehow!

Mind you, she was an absolute dragon of a matron! The emotional/psychological scars she caused are with me to this day!

lpnflorida · Sep 02, 2008, 05:52 AM

Re: Been nursing for half a century!

Reading your posts you have just become one of the many role models I admire. oh well, only 10 more years to reach your age but 20 more to reach your years of service. You will be my inspiration to hang in there.

Congratulations.

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Been nursing for half a century!

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