Let's play I Remember When.....

galenight, BSN, RN · Dec 30, 2000

To those of you who mentioned stainless steel bedpans.... WE STILL USE THEM!!! I work in a small rural hospital that has decided it's cheaper to sterilize than to use plastic. Never mind patient comfort. Also to the nurse who mentioned shave preps and enemas before delivery... still done at a nearby hospital for one of the older doc. Just when you think things have progressed....... Another thing we still use that are out of date... water manonometers for subclavian lines. On occasion we have also used cantor tubes.. you know, the ones with mercury.. Once we dc'd a cantor tube that no longer had any mercury in it!!! Talk about looks across the room!!! Fortunately the patient had no ill effects that I know of. I'm looking forward to my hospital entering the 1990's LOL

OC_An Khe · Dec 30, 2000

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I wonder how many outdated practises and others that have shown by research to be ineffective are still being used.

Oh well, this is supposed to be a fun thread.

Glass everything, from thermometers,reuseable syringses, gomco suctions and chest tube three bittle systems that were really bottles.

MichRn74 · Dec 30, 2000

Great choice of topic! Graduated in 1974. remeber all those things posted. Remember cotton swabs with alcohol in a cup instead of swabs, writing out diet and condition sheets every shift,

actually having time to spend with a dying patient and their family, teaching a diabetic all they need to know in a week instead of a day or two

actually teaching students instead of being glad they can take some pt care off your hands, hand holding tube feedings, instead of pumps, counting and calculating IV drip rates,instead of setting up an IMED pump.yes I remember clysis well! Some things are better, like actually understanding what lab tests mean, able to make your own judgements without calling the MD (especially in a critical care setting),pleurovacs,pulse oximeters, auto B/P cuffs etc

tntrn, ASN, RN · Dec 31, 2000

I graduated from an ADN school in 1976, 5 months pregnant with my second child. I worked med-surg until he was born, then 6 weeks later I started working L & D, and have been there since. I remember NEVER wearing gloves for anything, and having some weird sense of accomplishment when up to my elbows in blood after a delivery!

I also remember when labor patients actually gave a rip about their care instead of choosing a hospital by the "freebies" the hospital offered.

I also remember having head nurses who were older than I was, had actual bedside experience instead of the one I now have--young with very little nursing experience, no managerial experience, and no inclination to find out what us old broads know.

kiwijangle · Dec 31, 2000

I trained in a hospital in New Zealand in the early 70's, and much that has been said I recall. What about walking up one side of the corridor so as not to impede foot-traffic? And standing aside so a more senior person could enter the room first? We bathed the babies between 9 - 10 am, wrapped them and poked them in bundles into pigeon holes on a big trolley. At 10am we pushed the trolley through the maternity ward and handed the babies out for the scheduled feed (30 or so at a time). Our hospital would only employ married house-surgeons, as the only single one they tried (?when) got a theatre nurse pregnant - meaning the end of her career no doubt!

JillR · Dec 31, 2000

We also use the stainless steel bed pans and cantor tubes with mercury in them, I can't believe that we are even allowed to use this anymore, it is so unsafe.

I would live to get my hospital in to the 20th century (at least), it is very frustrating.

MollyJ · Jan 1, 2001

Too much fun not to join in on this one...

I remember when Tagamet came out, the first h2 blocker and it revolutionized ulcer care.

I remember the smell of ether used by an old doc when I was in nursing school and it made me sick.

I remember a nurse 10 years older than me bragging how she had worked in the first ICU in the state (that would have been the '60's).

I remember paraldehyde and how it would melt styrofoam cups. And how it stank!

I remember when having a central line on a general med floor was considered rare and somewhat cool.

I remember an older doc treating a woman's fingertip frostbite with [purple] potassium permanaganate and writing an order for us to hold her cigarettes to smoke. Even back then, "yeah right..."

I remember learning in school that Guillian-Barre was a rare syndrome that we would never see and then seeing a handful of cases that one winter when it was influenza vaccine related.

I remember nurses telling me that originally doctors could only defibrillate. They would call the doc for a pt in vfib, charge the paddles, he would run into the room (from his office or home at times) and defib the patient.

I remember elaborate pre-op ortho preps (shave, paint with betadine, wrap with sterile dressings) the night before and if there was too many razor nicks, the ortho would cancel the surgery.

As Billy Joel sings, "...and the good old days weren't always good..." but I think some of the most poignant memories point to loss of caring as something nurses have time to do, because their is no reimbursement code for caring, is there....

Happy Holidays and thanks for the memories.

RNSue · Jan 7, 2001

It's been great reading all the replies to my post. Thanks to all who responded. Those were the good old days! I also remember paraldehyde(YUK!) and how about collodion? I Remember When... we weren't allowed to answer the callbell over the intercom, we had to go to the patient's room to answer it(it was considered rude!)... a co-worker got in trouble from the night supervisor for leaving a patient's plastic cup on the shelf in the bathroom with a paper towel under it!(a place for germs to collect!)... I got in trouble by the same night supervisor for putting the sheets on a bed INSIDE OUT!(when the sheet was folded down over the blanket the seam wasn't down)...one of the more elderly nurses got to take a nap every shift she worked!...holding a patient's hand and reading her Bible to her in the middle of the night...LIKING MY JOB!!!

outbackannie · Jan 24, 2001

I remember testing urines for specific gravity by spinning the weighted glass rod. Testing for acetone in the urine with a little blue fizzy tablet. Rounds and "Grand Rounds". We staffed in "teams". RN was the teamleader and did the IV stuff, notes and teaching, LPN passed the meds and did simple drssing changes-yep, betadine and sugar paste and heatlamp. CNA made beds and gave baths. We usually had about 10=12 patients for our team. I learned how to knit and crochet after all the work was done. I also remember a lovely elderly couple who checked in every winter "for a rest"...they actually changed their address at the post office to the hospital. Wonder how team nursing would work nowadays?

sparrow · Jan 24, 2001

I remember my white uniform being so stiffly starched that you could stand it up in the corner all by itself! Part of the appropriate uniform was a girdle to provide back support. How about metal enema buckets to which you attached rubber tubing? Milk and molasses enemas? Using sugar and orange peal on decubitus. Forceps kept in zephren and used to remove sterile 4x4's from glass jars in which they had been sterilized. The forceps were sent to CS once a week for sterilization and the zephrin was changed we now knows it grows EVERYTHING!). Putting betadine ointment around the urinary meatus as part of the Am foley care (ouch, that stuff stings!!!) Tap bells at the bedside (no electric nurse bell here - when you heard the bell you listened carefully in hope you could at least tell which direction it came from and then you walked the hall until you narrowed down the room - and then you usually had to go get something for the patient - another trip down that ever lengthing hall!). Darvocet, Darvon, Talwin, and Valium stocked in the medication room in stock bottles of several hundred tablets and no count! Headache: just take a Darvon or Darvocet. Got some aches or pains: grab a handfull for use at home! Why there were not more addicts among nurses amazes me! Drawing Demerol and Morphine out of multidose vials into glass syringes and "guestimating" how much remained at end of shift count. Dissolving codiene tablets in sterile water to give injections. All medications came in stock bottles you poured into little paper cups and placed on a tray on top of the medicine card. I remember a nurse being asked by a patient to hand something to her and she simply forgot she was holding the medicine tray and dropped the whole thing - pills and liquids ran everywhere! But I would give anything to go back to those days. You knew more about your patient than just their name and diagnosis. You got to fluff, puff and actually relieve their anxiety and pain - with out PILLS. You could really nurse, just like old Flo meant nursing to be, not just pushing buttons on a computer writing things about the patient that you really did not do or observe for yourself because you are too busy meeting the paper requirements to actually care for the patient, relieve pain with a back rub, or walk down the hall holding their hand, put their feet in warm water to soak and then give them a foot rub, in short: to care and nurse.

mustangsheba · Jan 24, 2001

I guess I'm still living in the dark ages. When I started my computer charting last night (agency nurse here), the charge remarked that it was 6pm, what had I been doing. They all laughed when I said I'd been taking care of patients!

puzzler · Jan 25, 2001

I love this!!! I remember all of the above.

Yes, we dissolved morphine tablets to create the injectable form. We routinely irrigated foley caths with potassium permanganate b.i.d. too. Remember that purple stuff?

Oh my, what memories. LOL. Glass IV bottles were really a trip when I was working med/surg in a state mental institution-- they also did lobotomy there.

When the wards were not too, too bad on nights in one hospital they would send us down to count pills and put them in prelabeled containers for the pharmacy (try that now).

I remember the first "saline lock" and disposable syringe and needle I ever saw. And of course there were absolutely NO respiratory therapists.

My goodness, couldn't we just go on and on forever. Thanks for posting these replies, it has made my night.

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Sheryl

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