OBOY!....did I date myself today!!!!!

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I have been in emergency nursing for many years. I cannot remember the last time I had to crush a pill for a patient; if the pt couldn't swallow pills I've always been able to find the liquid form or injectable. I had a kid who needed a Pyridium and can't swallow pills, so I went to medsurg looking for a mortar and pestle. Couldn't find one in the med room, so I went to the desk. A new grad who's been out for less than a year told me there was one in the med room, and I told her I couldn't find it. She led me back there and pulled out this heavy metal silver contraption that I had seen and didn't recognize.....a pill crusher! When I was in school we didn't have a pill crusher, had to use a mortar and pestle!

I wish I'd had a camera for the look on her face........:roll

Specializes in LTC, med-surg, critial care.
These use heavy plastic crusher envelopes....put the pills in the envelope, and place it between two surfaces and bring the handle down, and it crushes the pills.

I love, love, love those things. Best idea ever. We don't use them at my facility we have the old metal things. Place a pill between two paper cups and bang away! At least once a shift I'll hear an confused resident say "Who's knocking? Come on in!" :roll

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Specializes in Telemetry/Med Surg.

What works well is when I crush the pills still in their aluminum/plastic package with the pestle...bang, bang, bang...then open the package and dump it into the small plastic cup to be mixed with whatever...

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Specializes in Transplant, homecare, hospice.
I am a May graduate and during one of my clinical rotations in school they were still using a mortar and pestle.

We don't use them, but you know what? I wish we did...they work so much better than the alternative plastic pill crushers.

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Specializes in LDRP.

We have pill crushers, but often they get left in the room of pt's with tube feedings.SO, in a jam, some have been known to leave pills in their unit dose package, give it a whack or several with the mak scanner (the barcode scanner we use for meds. looks like the handheld scanners they use at Target/WM/etc)

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We had to replace the mortar-pestle, also the screw down type and use silent knight with the baggies, joint commission said that those devices could cause allergic rxn, even if well cleaned, also had to get rid of the 100cc bag of saline we used for flushes on the unit, replaced those with pre-filled, same for the heparin flush vials- said it was an infection control issue.

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Specializes in Psych, M/S, Ortho, Float..

I've never seen a silent knight, but why do all methods of crushing pills have to make such a racket???

Three o'clock in the morning and your waking everyone up. Hammer and baggies, old pill crusher, all make way too much noise. The screw types don't make much noise, but they are such a pain to clean and dry.

When I started nursing, we had this big beasty that was permanently attached to ONE of the med carts. If you had the other cart, you had to go with your pills to find the other cart. Now, who thought of that one???

My favorite method, without an official crusher is the blood culture bottles when they were glass with the pills in the single dose packs. Never had a bottle break on me either.

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That sounds like an awful lot of trouble every time you need pills crushed.

but fun

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Nope, no glass syringes, but I remember having to calculate drip rates by eye and using special tubing for pumps, Crutchfield tongs, having to TPA MI pts and hope for the best.....

Thrombolytics aren't out of use, they've just evolved. Our outlying hospitals will still "TNK-ase" (Tenectaplase sp?) a pt and sent them on. And, I've seen them go to the cath lab within a few hours.

Exciting to pull a sheath on a thrombolyticized pt. . .

And I remember my first job - pumps were only for the "important" meds/gtts. Of 10 pts any given shift, maybe 1 had a pump out of the 8 on some IV fluid or other. . . Let's see, at 10gtts/ml and 80 ml/hr . . .

And let's try PAPER BOARDS - and waiting 3 months for the results (after waiting 2 to take the test.) I was a GN for almost 5 months!

And before Plavix, how many of you remember EVERYBODY being on Ticlid - and now, hmmmmmm, where did it go??? For that matter, where oh where did SQ heparin go?

~faith,

Timothy.

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"Thrombolytics aren't out of use, they've just evolved. Our outlying hospitals will still "TNK-ase" (Tenectaplase sp?) a pt and sent them on. And, I've seen them go to the cath lab within a few hours. "

Oh, I know that. I was talking about the days before we had cath labs. I used to work at the place where I currently send most of my MI's....we would thrombolyze them and send them to the unit and pray. The hospital where I work now is an hour away.....back then it wasn't recommended for outlying places to use thrombos.

"And I remember my first job - pumps were only for the "important" meds/gtts. Of 10 pts any given shift, maybe 1 had a pump out of the 8 on some IV fluid or other. . ."

And if you hadn't anticipated pump use, you had to change the tubing first!

"And let's try PAPER BOARDS - and waiting 3 months for the results (after waiting 2 to take the test.) I was a GN for almost 5 months!"

I graduated in June, drove 3 hours one way in July for the boards, and got my results 12 weeks to the day later!

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Specializes in Ortho, Med surg and L&D.
Nameless coworkers would take the pill, put it in a ziplok bag and beat it with the telephone receiver. Worked. Not endorsig mind you.

Hi,

The quickest and smoothest crush I ever saw was when a co worker said, "now don't do like I do" and held the eveloped pill up to a wardrobe in a pt's room and opened the door. The pill was smashed between the opening cabinet door and the wardrobe!

Might come in handy...

Gen

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Specializes in Critical Care.
Oh, I know that. I was talking about the days before we had cath labs. I used to work at the place where I currently send most of my MI's....we would thrombolyze them and send them to the unit and pray. The hospital where I work now is an hour away.....back then it wasn't recommended for outlying places to use thrombos.

Now we just need to wait for the day when we can talk this way about the bad old days of stroke therapy, back when we just thrombolized them, and sent them to the unit and pray . . .

BTW, I went to language school there many moons ago. Monterey is a great area.

~faith,

Timothy.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

We have gotten the "pill crushers" on our unit and people always go back to the mortar and pestal. The thing is big, loud and a PIA. Much easier to put the pills in a souffle cup, put a cup on top of it and smash them with the pestal. No mess, no fuss and you can scoop a little applesauce in the paper souffle cup and give it. Vent some frustration at the same time when ya crush it..

I always use the souffle cups to crush pills, because some dont ever clean the pestal after they use it. Dont want to mix medicine ya know?

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