You know you're Old School when...

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  • Specializes in A and E, Medicine, Surgery.

You are reading page 4 of You know you're Old School when...

caliotter3

38,333 Posts

My supervisor on a case back when, still swore by bag balm and even had it written as an order. First and only place I've ever seen it used.

Specializes in Rehab, Infection, LTC.

I got excited when I saw this thread. I thought "i love to hear the 'old' nurses talking about waybackwhen".

i dont know when it happened, but danged if i havent become one of the 'old' nurses!

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP

4 Articles; 5,259 Posts

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.
String of cups -- each time the pt voided following surgery he would do it in a cup and we would line them up in order and you could see the decrease in the amount of blood in the urine, other then that I'm not sure why they had us do it.

Oh. We called that 'racking the urine.' :nurse:

And we still do postpartum sitz baths....just that they're one per patient and not washed between. :)

DogWmn

575 Posts

Specializes in LTC Family Practice.

This is such a great thread!!! It certainly is bringing back a lot of memories.

Mixing meds, the ole' black & white with MOM and Cascara.

Cardexes - painstakenly written out

The little med cards that you laid out as you poured your meds and put on a med tray...LOL.

Checking IV's by counting gtts to make sure the rate remaind the same.

I worked ortho and we had wards of people in traction for back pain, mostly ladies, who I think treated it like a vaca from their toils...LOL I used to be great at setting up traction beds for just about anything! Our Ortho's were there for weeks and months!!!

Oh and ugh those shoes, hard thin soled leather...ouch! Having to wear a white dress, hose, shoes and that #$% cap. At the end of the shift my cap was askew (hitting it constantly on ortho traction frames), hose baggy, dress spotted with something - looked like pig-pen :uhoh3:.

Charting with different color pens for each shift, I was on 2nd and finding green pens was difficult.

Enforced visiting hours - no kids running through the halls, only so many per patient, you could walk down the hall during visiting hours and it's still be pretty quiet.:up:

nyteshade, BSN

555 Posts

Specializes in Legal, Ortho, Rehab.
I can remember the difference between YOU'RE (a contraction of You Are) and YOUR (a possessive adjective of You)... :eek:

Honestly, nurses used to get dinged on spelling and grammar. Nowadays, with some of the entries I've read in charts, I wonder if we're still speaking English.

The title of the thread is correct...You know you are old school when...

Libitina

144 Posts

Specializes in Obs & gynae theatres.

You lot should come work for the NHS. We still have a lot of the things that you miss. Flat sheets, nurses calculating drugs and mixing iv's, no 24hr pharmacy, 18 bed wards, cardex, no aircon...etc....etc....

nrgstudent

2 Posts

I was just learning about this in class, we did a brief history of nursing. It is great to hear it first hand from the very nurses who experienced it. We have come a long way since, is unreal how nursing has changed. Thanks for posting this

sistasoul

717 Posts

Specializes in neuro/ortho med surge 4.
Love this thread !! You know you're old school when:

IV's were hung in 'series sets'. All IV's for 24 hours were hung with IV sets connecting one to the other, and all were glass bottles !:uhoh3:

Pulmonary edema was treated by 'rotating tournequits' on three of the four limbs to decrease venous return.....:)

Dressings were not individually wrapped and the sterile utility room had large stainless containers. Forceps were used to remove what you needed for a dressing

You started IV's with your bare hands.

Cardiac monitoring was done by attaching metal electrodes to the chest held by a large rubber strap :redbeathe

All drugs on the 'code cart' had to be hand mixed on the spot

A routine assignment on "PM's" was a wing of 21 patients assisted by an LPN and aide

"orientation" was one or two shifts, and about 1 day of class.....

Everyone got backrubs.... ( why did we stop this??)

There was no unit dose, INCLUDING narcotics. All meds were poured for the WHOLE wing and placed on a tray. ( they were labeled with cards)

All dosages were CALCULATED by the RN.:eek:

IV pumps were rare....

Still, we got it done, and we gave GOOD care !!

I wish there was time for backrubs. I agree it would be very relaxing for our patients but there just isn't time.

Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
My supervisor on a case back when, still swore by bag balm and even had it written as an order. First and only place I've ever seen it used.

I used it for my babies, in fact I have a some of it in the bathroom LOL. They aren't babies anymore but I use it in the winter when it gets so dry here and my 2 younger boys lick around there mouth a lot and it will get really irritated. I never heard of it until my 3rd son. But a lot of people use it for diaper rash on babies, I was fortunate there, out of 4 kids only had one mild case of diaper rash.

thehipcrip

109 Posts

Wrist boards for patients with IVs.

prettygirllpn

30 Posts

Lighting candles in boxes and then inserting the GYN sample we just collected on a chocolate auger plate...

I'm confused...Could you please explain this? Thanks!

Specializes in Critical Care.
I'm confused...Could you please explain this? Thanks!

I could be wrong but I think they were trying to test for bacterial disease by sort of incubating/encouraging bacterial growth in a patient's GYN sample on a type of blood agar plate. Could be wrong though!

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