Only Crusty Old Bats will remember..

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

So, I really need a fun thread right now. We've done similar things before and it's always fun.

so, things Crusty Old Bats(COB) remember that new nurses today will not.

1. The clunk your uniform makes when you drop it in the laundry hamper and you realize you came home with the narcotic keys.

2. The splat the over full paper chart makes when you drop it on the floor. Papers everywhere. 15 mins getting everything back together.

3. The smell of the smoking lounge .

4. Nurse and Docs smoking at the Nsg Station.

5. Trying to match the colour of the urine in the test tube to determine the sugar level.

+1? +2? Which one?

OK my fellow COBs. Jump in!

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Polishing my white Clinic shoes and scrubbing the laces before clinicals. Yes, they were inspected.

The addressograph machine

Hand crank beds (in other words, the patient could not raise/ lower their head themselves)

OB before epidural anesthesia

Wards

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

Ah yes, 3 colour charting. What Fun!

Crank beds! I remember how excited I was when I started a new job and all the beds were electronic!

[caliotter3]

I had a geezer home care patient who told me that when I answered his phone, I should refer to myself as "Nurse last name". That is the only time anyone has ever made mention of proper forms of addressing each other or oneself.

[caliotter3]

Maybe tomorrow at work I will introduce myself as Nurse Shadow instead of, "Hi, My name is WK and I am one of the nurses."

There's always, "I am one of the hired help."

[poppycat, ADN, BSN]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned glass IV bottles.

Having to adjust IV flow rates using a roller clamp & your watch.

[sevensonnets]

Oh yes, having an absolute heart attack when the chart went splat all over the floor, usually when the chart was long overdue to be thinned. Counting narcs was never fun. Once the nurse counting with me caught the Demerol box on the edge of the shelf and 25 Demerols came raining down on our heads. We found all but one and had to do an incident report with the supervisor. I found it in my pocket when I got home! I used to make a postop bed in layers so all you had to do was peel off a layer every day and you never had to change the bed for days. Lots more but I'm tired right now.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

Flat, non-fitted sheets, fingercots, Bird respirators for breathing treatments, tincture of opium.

[Emergent, RN]

IVs connected with needles instead of claves. IVP meds were given via syringe with needle into a hub. Needleless systems unknown.

Potassium kept concentrated in the units.

Continuing Ed consisted real classes and skills days instead of computer classes.

DAR and SOAP charting.

IV lines flushed with saline , then heparin, they were called heplocks, not saline locks.

[Susie2310]

Chart throwing by a doctor. Yes, right across the room.

Huge chart racks at the Nurses Station.

Paper charts and MARS; rolodex type Kardexes; being taught to check for Homan's sign in nursing school and doing this in clinicals; hanging an IV bag, counting the drips by your watch and using a roller clamp to adjust the rate; volutrols; latex gloves.

An atmosphere of pride and satisfaction in care given; daily morning bed baths using soap, water, and washcloths, and bed linen changes; making mitred corners with bed sheets; lots of experienced nurses; Heparin locks on peripheral IV's; hanging Aminophylline on ICU step-down in nursing school; Heparin infusions for stroke patients; huge binders full of paper policies and procedures.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Kardexes when done correctly were the bible of the patient's plan of care (both medical and nursing).

I miss those. Computer charting makes it very difficult to get a good picture of what is going on with a patient.

I started at age 40 and that was 19 years ago so there was no smoking in the hospital but I loved hearing the stories by the nurses who trained me of nurses and doctors smoking at the nurses' station and nurses smoking in the little tiny break room and the door opening and smoke billowing out.

As a hospice nurse, I've been taking care of those older nurses now and many have lung cancer.

I keep telling them they need to get together and write a book about our little local hospital when the nurses ran the hospital and the docs just went along for the ride. Such great stories!

[heron, ASN, RN]

Rotating tourniquets for pulmonary edema.

Endless iced saline lavage for ugi bleeds.

Paraldehyde given rectally for DTs - with a glass syringe because it melted the plastic ones.

Using those Byrd respirators to give IPPB treatments: kind of a bipap with meds added - including mucomyst (pew!).

q2hr sippy diet feedings.

Blenderised tube feedings: real food run thru a blender like baby food.