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 Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.
Omg so I'm watching Emergency! And its cracking me up how Nurse Dixie is literally just standing watching the doc do compressions (5:2 mind you lol) and pushing the meds. Plus there's a TON of silence during action scenes, other than that I'm quite entertained! Thanks for letting me know about this show!
Enjoy!
It's very enlightening to see how far (and how little) we've come in the past 40 years!
I remember (not that long ago) using pieces of tape to label every channel manually for what drip we were giving on it, then making little tape flags at the end of the lines where they plugged into the CVL to keep them all straight. Now if you program the pump the preferred way, using the "smart" database, all of the med names will display on the pump. Good luck getting anyone to do THAT though. Not nearly as fun as tape flag arts and crafts, I guess.
Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
Question... On the show Dixie's hat has two stripes but a lot of nurses only have one. Was that to signify a supervisory position or something? And what's with EVERYONE getting IV D5W? Did 0.9% NS not exist yet or something? I am truly fascinated with how different things were back then!
Question... On the show Dixie's hat has two stripes but a lot of nurses only have one. Was that to signify a supervisory position or something? And what's with EVERYONE getting IV D5W? Did 0.9% NS not exist yet or something? I am truly fascinated with how different things were back then!
Watching the show as I type!
I thought two stripes was to signify charge nurse as well; I hope someone can confirm or deny this.
As far as I know (which isn't saying much, ha ha) the cap is specific to which nursing school you went to. Each school had their own style. You got the stripe for RN; the LPN's cap were plain white. I was always charge and never had but one wide black stripe.
At my schools (LPN and Purdue University) you got one stripe when you were 'capped' - usually after the first semester of clinicals, and then the second stripe upon graduation.
Yes, I always strived for a pretty robin's egg blue. One hospital used GREEN food coloring; now if that wasn't gross! They let the pharmacist choose the color; only a non-nurse would've picked green.
I was watching an emergency room show (forget the name, but it comes on all the time) a few weeks ago, and they had a rash of college boys who all went to the ER because they were peeing blue. It was all a huge joke someone at the college had cooked up.
brillohead, ADN, RN
1,781 Posts
I know, right? Crazy....