I was admitting a patient the other night into the PICU, and the parents were VERY anxious. Rightfully so. Our attending, in an effort to make them more at ease, said, "Meanmaryjean has been a nurse for over thirty years and is our most experienced nurse!"
As is sometimes the case, I discovered that I have been a nurse longer than the parents have been alive. But it got me thinking, so I offer up this thread for you 'more experienced' nurses (and those who aren't if you want).
I'll start off by saying:
I've been a nurse since before there was an internet. Before AIDS. Before Elvis died.
I've only been a nurse for 4.5 years but I've traveled extensively and had other careers. I'm 41, so I remember when the computer was still a novelty and we had no cell phones.
I also remember when AIDS was emerging. I was a kid then but nobody really knew what AIDS was in the 80's.
I've been a nurse since 1976. Yep! Yet another crusty old bat! It was a second career for me. I remember glass IV bottles, taking BPs with a cuff, temps with mercury thermometers, metal bedpans and emesis basins and urinals. I remember putting lemonade and iced tea into a urinal full of ice, popcorn into a bedpan, smoking at the nurses station (NOT me.) I remember paper charts, when the NCLEX was called state boards and took two days to take with a #2 pencil. After that, I waited 12 weeks to find out I'd passed.
Yes kids, I'm o-l-d. As one small fry in my family said about my great aunt, I'm ode...ode...ode...I wore the dreaded white dresses, white support pantyhose, a SLIP, and tie-at-the-side white leather shoe, (NurseMates, I think.) And the infamous cap.
I've been a nurse since.....January. So not a whole lot of experience over here.
But way up here in Canada I DID write my exam in a paper booklet with pencil, and it took 6 weeks to get the results. And there were many speculations on envelope sizes!
We have electronic documentation but doctor's orders are still on paper, we have paper cardexes which are written in pencil, and paper MARs.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
I've been a nurse since orders were still on paper at my facility.
I've been a nurse since 2006, we had kardex careplans and all paper charting , MARs, and orders
We always seem to do things halfway. We've had EMRs in our ICUs for about 5 years, but all our orders, MARs, specialist consults, specialist progress notes, lab reports and diagnostic imaging reports are on paper. (Outside of the ICUs EVERYTHING is on paper.) And we still use a paper Kardex and a pencil.
I've been a nurse since beds had cranks - my shins still remember!
Mine too! I thought it was such a novelty when I changed hospitals and we used Stryker beds that had tension bars at the top to adjust the head and foot pedals to raise and lower the bed. Then we went to all-electric!! We knew we'd arrived.
I've been a nurse since temperatures were taken with glass/mercury thermometers. We had fifty that we kept in a metal pan in Cidex solution ... checking the temp, shaking down the thermometer and putting all together back in the metal pan. Uggh, right?
Get the spill kit!! I just dropped a thermometer!! I used to break them quite regularly while I was shaking them down... hitting the edge of the bassinet or the countertop.
Every now and then, when I'm really tired and on autopilot, I'll pick up an electric thermometer and try to 'shake it down'......my younger co-workers wonder about me sometimes.
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joanna73, BSN, RN
4,767 Posts
I've only been a nurse for 4.5 years but I've traveled extensively and had other careers. I'm 41, so I remember when the computer was still a novelty and we had no cell phones.
I also remember when AIDS was emerging. I was a kid then but nobody really knew what AIDS was in the 80's.