Crusty Old Bats

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Share your ancient memories. One of mine is Kardexes.  We used them in report.  Updated them with pencil and eraser ! 

Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.

Glass syringes

Red rubber catheters

Scultetus binders

Cloth lap sheets in the OR

Autoclaves to sterilize irrigation fluids we mixed in two-liter glass bottles with salt tablets 

Treating decubitus ulcers with antacid and sugar paste, covering the sacrum with a denture cup with an oxygen tubing at 3LPM. Actually worked, hyperosmolar and dry. Pull sheets hadn't been invented yet, so we had a lot of denuded sacrums... 

Butterfly needles for IVs — which some nurses aspirated for blood return with their own lips...

Stripping chest tubes

Cough tubes

MAP ( mean arterial pressure) lines set up with manometer dials; running open heart patients on one CVP line, one MAP line, and one peripheral line for the blood. And Bird respirators. 

No more than 2 pts at a time in the open heart ICU, and often one. 

Actual breaks and reliefs. 8-hour shifts! Wonderful. 

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Specializes in Emergency Department.
Hannahbanana said:

Scultetus binders

Sorry, what is that? Never heard that name.

Hannahbanana said:

Treating decubitus ulcers with antacid and sugar paste,

We used egg white and oxygen.

 

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Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.
GrumpyRN said:

 

Hannahbanana said:

Scultetus binders

Sorry, what is that? Never heard that name.

 

It was a large square of heavy flannel or linen with a row of 8-10 long tails on either side. The flat piece went underneath the back with the tails trailing out laterally to the sides. The tails then got laid very smoothly and snugly across the abdomen and tucked in underneath the body on the opposite side, one at a time, top to bottom,  alternating left-right. Last one got pinned. The friction of the flannel held them all in place to support/compress the abdomen to take lateral tension off an extensive abdominal incision, for example. Obviously before Velcro (tm). 

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Specializes in Emergency Department.
Hannahbanana said:

It was a large square of heavy flannel or linen with a row of 8-10 long tails on either side....

Thank you for that. I have never seen these. Doesn't mean they weren't used, just that I have never seen them - but then I did not work in general surgery.  

A quick internet search says that they may have been known as just plain "abdominal binders" over here and according to Amazon you can still buy them.???

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

I remember pensions.  

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Specializes in oncology.
Hannahbanana said:
GrumpyRN said:
Hannahbanana said:

Scultetus binders

Sorry, what is that? Never heard that name.

 

It was a large square of heavy flannel or linen with a row of 8-10 long tails on either side. The flat piece went underneath the back with the tails trailing out laterally to the sides. The tails then got laid very smoothly and snugly across the abdomen and tucked in underneath the body on the opposite side, one at a time, top to bottom,  alternating left-right. Last one got pinned. The friction of the flannel held them all in place to support/compress the abdomen to take lateral tension off an extensive abdominal incision, for example. Obviously before Velcro (tm). 

Oh my goodness I forgot all about these until I heard the name! Everything about them came back in a flash. But I never remember any 'friction of the flannel" holding in place. We used a large safety pin on the last tail. But I remember it as providing more support to the abdomen with descending until we added the safety pin. Any way there is an example in a "Museum of Nursing"!!

 

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
londonflo said:

Oh my goodness I forgot all about these until I heard the name! Everything about them came back in a flash. But I never remember any 'friction of the flannel" holding in place. We used a large safety pin on the last tail. But I remember it as providing more support to the abdomen with descending until we added the safety pin. Any way there is an example in a "Museum of Nursing"!!

 

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I remember those!

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Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.
No Stars In My Eyes said:

mmc5- I bet you get asked this a lot: "WHAT is a 'gatch?' 

Yep and then I explain it ?

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Specializes in Mental Health Nurse.
Pepper The Cat said:

Charting in 3 colours.

Double bagging isolation linen bags.

People smoking at the nurses station.

Narcotic keys.

Haha! Imagine the smoking at the nurses station now?

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
rosewain24 said:

Haha! Imagine the smoking at the nurses station now?

I picture it like this

1432710810_ScreenShot2024-02-09at17_36_18.png.b6fd4eec3ad6d63eebb4801e16453490.png

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rosewain24 said:

Haha! Imagine the smoking at the nurses station now?

1986. Smoked in the lounge with the patients.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
Been there,done that said:

1986. Smoked in the lounge with the patients.

We still had smoking in the lounge when I started in the LTC in '94. When they stopped that a few years later the residents who smoked were grandfathered in and they made a corner of the dining room their smoking area

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