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 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.
What I wouldn't give for another pair of those tie-at-the-side Nursemates. Or if Reebok started making the DMX shoe again. (No kidding, most comfortable shoe EVAH)
In the days of large green oxygen cylinders at the bedside, glass IV bottles and chest tube drainage bottles, large open wards with curtains between the beds, reusable dressing trays, gloves for sterile procedures only, glass syringes, reusable needles, metal bedpans, and posey restraints. I just retired this week. I've loved every day (well most days) of this exciting career and would heartily recommend it to anyone.
All of you guys saying you were nurses "before" EMR - we paper charted in Clinical just in the last year. Its only since then that the last 2 hospitals in the area went EMR.
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.
We use an electric thermometer to check temps on our dog and cats. Just as you said, when I'm on autopilot or just waking up, I'll shake the thermometer down. My husband either looks at me as though I have two heads or just shakes his head and walks away!
MMJ, if we both do it, neither of us is crazy. It has become one more alternative!
I have been a nurse since 1977, started at age 20. I remember paper order sheets, glass chest tube bottles and smoking by everyone in the hospital- drs,nurses,patients and visitors. I remember when we started hanging TPN. Yes, no goggle'
I've been a nurse since: we wore caps, extra pair of white stockings in the locker, when gloves were used only for isolation patients, when we double bagged, before DRG's, before primary nursing, when IPPB machines were still used, when we filed burrs of the reusable needles, 2 day NCLEX-3 month result wait. Gas was 38cents a gallon and a draft beer was 25 cents. Smoking at the nurses station, eating while coding a patient, when we managed pain through comfort measures and imagery, I was there when Superman arrived in our hospital, when we had to ice our syringes for cardiac outputs, before the monitors did all the calculations, I knew the formulas by heart. When we used the Fick method for pediatric patients. placenta was processed for burn covering, CABG's stayed in the ICU for about 5 days, paraldehyde was used, Insulin was used for depression, State psych hospitals were still open and we had less homeless, before entitlement when people tried to help themselves. Before AIDS, when people still understood the importance of vaccinating children, when you called your patients by their sir name, when you stood up and gave your chair to the Doc, walked behind HIM for patient rounds carrying all the patient charts, when charts were metal hanging charts, red, green and black pens, eight hour shifts, men were just coming into nursing, Peace, Love, and Rock and Roll, respect, abuse was part of the job, eating their young was considered a right of passage, Clysis was given to the elderly for hydration, Maalox and sugar was used with heat lamps for decub ulcers, Vents were on the medical unit, Harvard clamp for TPN (no IV pumps) had to calculate drip rates with your watch.
This was fun, there are so many more things, and I am still learning, now I teach and am learning all the new technology, and I even stay up to date on EBP.
I was part of the many nurses who helped us get to where we are today, much of what we did then is EBP today. We hold the scar from the small pox vaccination. Hooray for all of us old bats, who actually wore the bat wings and had the guts to stand up for what was right.
yes also glass bottles, glass three bottle chest tube set up, metal trachs, gomco suction set up, crank beds, no lifting devices, Hs snacks, and peri care with back rubs. glass syringes.
I have been a nurse since the days when employees wasted time at work doing the crossword puzzles from the newspapers on slow nights rather than Facebook.
My unit has one Sudoku book tucked away in a drawer that all of the nurses photo copy from. I think most of the nights shift has done most of the book. No one dare actually write in it.
Yep...I remember having to tag all of the current orders so we could find them for review and so the unit clerk would know not to take them away when she/ he thinned the clipboard!
And trying to find time at the beginning of your shift to review the last 24 hours of orders and sign them off. Whenever we have down times now and have to revert to paper orders the newer nurses are like, "Why are you crossing that out?" Watch and learn, young grasshopper.
I've been a nurse since 2006, we had kardex careplans and all paper charting , MARs, and orders then, I've worked in med surg, LTC , home health, pre admission, and surgical, I've enjoyed most of my patients, coworkers, and positions, I'm proud to be an RN:nurse:
The Kardex never died an official death on my unit. Ever so slowly people stopped updating it. Occasionally one nurse would make an effort, but soon give up with how out of date it was. It just sat at the desk for the longest time with names of patients who were admitted a year ago. Finally, after many falls to the floor being pushed around and shoved out of the way it died it's final death and someone threw it away.
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meanmaryjean, DNP, RN
7,899 Posts
What I wouldn't give for another pair of those tie-at-the-side Nursemates. Or if Reebok started making the DMX shoe again. (No kidding, most comfortable shoe EVAH)