For all us ancient ones, how about remembering an oldie - aramine IV drip!
Was watching an oldie TV channel and Dragnet, Squad 51 (can't remember the real name, but it was with firemen/paramedics Gage & Desoto) and then Emergency came on. Some snakebite pt had bottomed out and was in the ER. All nurse Dixie McCall was doing was taking a manual blood pressure, handing the docs meds (that docs administered) and making phone calls.
No specific directions; just "an aramine drip".
I got the biggest kick watching the nurses walking around in their white uniform dresses and their white heeled shoes (beige pantyhose) and wearing their caps. (I am an antique nurse who loves nursing caps!).
So for you all you nurses out there, what are some of the obscure and oft forgotten meds that we all used to use at some time can you name???
Aramine precipitated this thread, but I also offer that oldie, aldomet. Any others???
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Anyone remember that HUGE green monster that was the balloon pump!
Yeah. In 1983, I saw it for the first time. Perfusion dropped off the patient with the pump and said "the waveform should look like a mitten. Call us if you have any problems."
And how would I know if I had a problem? I'd never seen nor heard of the danged thing before!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
If I recall, this was the first medical show that used to show those automatic door openers on the wall that you slapped so that the doors would open as the staff would hurry into the ER/ICU/OR.
To this day, I remember that opener anytime I hit one now.
Every time I open those doors, I think of the old couple walking down the hall, squabbling. He was calling her every name in the book, telling her she was stupid, old and ugly. When they neared those double doors into the ICU, she hung back just until he was right up to the door, then slapped the door opener on the wall. The door swung open and hit him right in the face as he continued to verbally abuse her. Two black eyes and a bloody nose.
There are some safety mechanisms on those doors now that they didn't have back then, and they aren't nearly as fast. Sometimes I think that's a shame.
Anyone remember that HUGE green monster that was the balloon pump!
Wasn't it a "Data Scope" brand. You had to time in constantly. I swore there was a poltergeist in ours that had it in for cardiac patients. It would reset to late deflate every time- never earily.
Don't think it was exactly a secret or anything, I mean there were a few other husband and wife couples on television back then. Mr. and Mrs. William Asher (Elizabeth Montgomery) were the power couple behind Bewitched but you'd never know it at that time from most anything related to the show.
Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams :) (cue the Haydn String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5)
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Remember when Mannitol IV came in a huge glass amp (50cc) with a little saw taped to it? The Mannitol was all crystallized, so you had to heat the amp on the stove in a pan of water until the crystals dissolved and then saw it open with the little saw and give it before it crystallized again. If you heated it too much, it exploded. (Ask me how I know that!)
Ruby Vee, BSN
17 Articles; 14,051 Posts
Yeah. In 1983, I saw it for the first time. Perfusion dropped off the patient with the pump and said "the waveform should look like a mitten. Call us if you have any problems."
And how would I know if I had a problem? I'd never seen nor heard of the danged thing before!