You Know You're an Old(er) Nurse If . . .

Nurses General Nursing

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You know you're an older nurse if:

1. You remember working with nurses who wore caps. :nurse:

2. You remember nurses (and doctors) sitting at the nurses station drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while charting. :smokin:

3. You remember when charting was done (handwritten) in 3 different colors (black or blue for day shift, green for evening shifts, red for night shift).

4. You remember when IV fluids came only in glass bottles.

5. You remember when breast milk wasn't a biohazard. :redlight:

6. You remember when chest tube setups consisted of glass bottles, rubber stoppers, and tubing.

7. You remember when white polyester uniforms were the standard for nurses.

8. You remember when you'd have given your eye teeth for a comfortable pair of nursing shoes (we haven't always been able to wear athletic shoes).

9. You remember when the hospital's top nurse was the director of nursing and not the chief nursing officer.

10. You remember giving lots of IM shots for pre-ops and pain meds.

What else?

HollyVK (with patient care experience going back to 1972) :gandalf:

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
Checking urine specific gravity at the bedside by putting a drop of urine on a little hand-held device.

QUOTE]

How about putting the urine into a glass cylinder, then putting in a little glass bobber thingy and giving it a spin- it settled in the urine and you read the line. Hygrometer??

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

the metal contraption that you used to screw the syringe into place in order to administer the med- can't think of the name of it.

There was a plastic version called a carpuject. I can't remember the name of the metal one either, but I always had one in my pocket. If you didn't have your own personal one, you could never find one when you needed it.

Tubex!!!!

I remember the time when nursing care plans were summarized on the Kardex. Treatments were given as scheduled, medications were passed on time, diets were delivered from the kitchen as ordered. Head nurses and their assistants coped with physicians' rounds and gave medicines. Staff nurses did patient care, and nurses' aides refilled water pitchers and emptied trash cans. The work got done, the nurses and aides all got time for meals and breaks, and nobody ever had to spend any time writing out a NANDA-approved nursing diagnosis.

Dalmane and Valium were stock items!

The item we use to give Morphine and Demerol is called a Tubex and as far as I know they are still used, except now they are plastic.

this is the best thread ever!!!! thanks i needed it after today's work day---but made me realize i really am old!!! that's OK

again thanks to everyone

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

Are they still that blue plastic? I've brought a million home and had to round them up when I left the job.

Duoderm/ what's the ostomy thingy...stomahesive... folded in a cup shape and put on heels to keep them from breaking down. [/]

Inflatable thingys to put on blood bags to make it go in rapidly.Way before pumps.

Blood warmer that was a 5 foot length of coiled tubing you put in a wash basin full of hot water for cold-agglutinin blood.

Rubber sheets, draw sheets (sewn that way).

The first computer system that had 6 keys across the keyboard top like where the function keys are now. [LAB] [DIETARY] [sUPPLY] [PHYSICAL THERAPY] [MISC] whoa that was *HI TECH*

Using KY to stick your black ribbon to your cap.

Team leader pushing her med cart, MAR, ashtray smoldering ciggy, little box of alcohol swabs that also had extra dalmane, darvocet-n valium in it. They were NOT controlled substances back in the day.

Specializes in floor to ICU.
Tubex!!!!

:yelclap: yep

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember the no ICU and you did rotating tourniquets on the floor. As a student the arrest cart was a glass case on the wall holding a knife blade and handle to open the chest with. In NICU the isolette that functioned like an iron lung (can't remember the name for it), and you weaned the babies by how they looked....no sats. And sad to say but I do remember sharpening the needles. You kept them in a little metal container in the medicine room and used forcepts to get them out of the container.

Barbara

Except for a few of the items, I remember all of the above mentioned. I worked at only one hospital in the 70's that required you to wear a cap. I hated wearing mine. While performing cpr on a pt one evening, it fell right on his face. I threw it into the corner and kept going with the cpr. At a small hospital I worked at in the 70's nurses did everything. Set up traction, started and maintained IV's, respiratory therapy, ultrasound treatments, to name a few. This is where I obtained most of my nursing skills. Guess I am getting old.

:specs: :specs: boy...am i old!!!

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