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

[P_RN]

how about it?

my first cap was white cotton with a drawstring in the back. it sort of favored an old pioneer sunbonnet only without the large front part. the front was only about 1" wide. my second was made of organdy and pretty much required starching every time we wore it. my third was a standard sears-roebuck generic one.....i lost it sometime in the early 80's.

my pin was 10 kt gold. kind of a round oval.....with the university seal in the center. it was stolen from my lab coat at work one day. i later found one in a pawn shop. it isn't gold but gold plated, but since it was all i could find i bought it for $5. i think the first one was like $50. (gold)

i found some caps on the web

univ.of wisconsin: cap collection

[jschut, BSN, RN]

Originally posted by leesonlpn

I graduated in 1980. I am an LPN. I wear a cap - it is white with a green and gold stripe horizontal across the top. These are the college colors as well as the green representing licensed practical nursing. I wear white uniforms, white hose and white duty shoes. I am not as old a florence nightengale, - I am 43. I receive daily comments from my patients, and family members, how nice it is to see nurse that looks like a nurse. It is a personal choice, and I choose to wear what I wear.I work a medical floor and have no trouble with my cap. It stays very secure on my head. I shall be buried in it.

Oh how wonderful! I only wish that some of the others would follow your example! I do love the new colors and prints of the scrubs and think nurses look beautiful no matter what, but to see a nurse still "look" like a nurse is an absolute blessing to me!

Thank You!!

Julie:)

[Y2KRN]

No cap from our school. I do have a pin that I wear, and worked very hard for.

Y2KRN

[CaronRN58]

Still have 2 of my original caps. They are tricornered and made from old sheets from the hospital where I trained(diploma)by our pediatric nursing instructor in her spare time. We were capped after the first 6 months, 1 diag. black stripe after 1 year, the second stripe the second year and the third stripe the third year. After graduation we had three black velvet stripes horizontally on each edge of the cap. The cap represented the three hospitals that combined to become the hospital that I graduated from.

The pin is also thicornered, gold and has the hospital logo on it. Also has my initials and the year that I graduated on the back. Don't wear it for fear of loosing it.

[puzzler]

Sure did have both. I wore my cap every shift I worked for many, many years. I was so used to having it on that I would forget it was there. Did I mind wearing it? No--I did not. There was not any question about it in those years. We all wore a cap (not many males in nursing back then but they did not have to wear a cap of any kind).

I quit wearing a cap when I started working on a unit where I had to wear scrubs. Felt kind of "naked" at first without my cap, pin, and stethoscope in my pocket. (We never wore our scopes around our neck--it was considered very unprofessional).

I had my cap until the last time I cleaned out my closets--finally gave it up.

I still have my pin. It is 14K gold oval with a pelican and her chicks (Louisiana state bird). It has a bar that hangs off of it that says Registered Nurse-- I think that is what it says--have not worn it in years.

The cap was white with a narrow cranberry colored velvet stripe over a wide gray cloth stripe. You would "glue" the velvet stripe on with KY jelly.

[NancyRN]

I'm an OLD new graduate ( graduated at age 48 last year). When I was growing up, a cap was the symbol for a nurse ( still is, when you see little dolls etc), so when I graduated, I bought my own cap. My instructor glued on the red velvet stripe for me (the cap my school used to issue just a few years ago). I wore it with pride a few times but I felt silly so I quit. The patients loved it, though.

It's sad when airline flight attendants look more polished and professional than RN's.

The hospitals love it when nurses can't be distinguished from housekeeping and aides. That way, no one can tell how few nurses are really on staff! Nurses, you've bought right into it!

I was told that caps were abandoned because they signified "servitude". What more honorable thing is there than to serve? Didn't Jesus serve others and instruct us to do the same?

[BrandyBSN]

I am pretty surprised that some nurses actually liked the caps. I have never actually seen a nurse wear one, except in books, and old movies.

I have seen a lot of the graduate composite pictures from when they still wore hats, and I always kinda laughed. But I am not sure if it is because of the hats, or the goofy uniforms my school used to wear, not to mention the hair styles from the 70s and 80s. I am glad that we do not have to wear the caps, mostly because i just put my hair in a pony tail or a barrette for clinicals. But I do think Nancy has a point, its hard to tell a nurse from a maint. man, or cafeteria worker, since they all wear scrubs.

I do think it is really neat how the different colors mean different things. I wonder what my nursing cap would look like if we still got them.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

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/history/historical_collections/hist_collections.html

http://www.son.wisc.edu/alumni/history/historical_collections/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.

[SharkLPN]

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

[chibear55]

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

[nyapa, RN]

Hi,

I had both a cap and a pin. The cap was of a generic variety with burgundy stripes. (lost after my grad photos were taken). My pin is a gold octagon with a pink rose in the center (Alberta's provincial flower). When I wore and laundered my own uniforms, I wore it all the time. Now that I wear hospital scrubs, I'm afraid that it'll get lost in the laundry.

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...

[akcarmean, LPN]

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.

[elkpark]

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).

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).