Specializes in ER, ICU/CCU, Open Heart OR Recovery, Etc.
Non computerized NCLEX exams, waiting for months to receive either a large brown envelope with a wall certificate and wallet license, or heaven forbid only a letter...
Hospitals/facilities without air conditioning and used steam heating. Either way you often roasted to death or in the case of winter were freezing on certain shifts because the boilers were turned down for the night.
Places where you had windows that actually opened. Fans in patient rooms, nurses station and in halls to circulate air and make some attempt at keeping things cool.
Hospitals did laundry on premises. If you ran short of linens when the laundry was closed you paged the supervisor. She in turn got the keys to master linen room and parceled out the request.
After changing bed linens, bath, cleaning up a BM or whatever everything was just chucked into one laundry bag, nothing separated.
Laundry chutes for sending down soiled linen to the wash.
Hearing those beautiful words on evenings over the loudspeaker "attention, visiting hours are now over" and you started giving people the bum's rush (ever so politely at first) to clear the place out.
Nurses not being able to chart or say anything that could be seen as a medical diagnoses. So you used words like "seems" or "appears" as in "pt seems to have ceased respiration..." meaning death, but since only doctors could declare a demise you had to wait for him or her to make that determination first.
Before HIV/AIDS epidemic outside of surgical technique rarely anyone wore gloves regardless of where their hands were going. Excessive vomitus, diarrhea, etc... you just dove in and got things done. Remember being told off by one nurse at the time that one was going to give offense to patients by wearing gloves.
L&D/Maternity being run along very strict lines (that often suited the hospital at expense of patient and or family). Fathers to be left their wives at the door and were sent first to admitting then went to the "dad's lounge" to cool their jets until their wife delivered. Rooming in? Forget it. Babies belonged in nursery and were brought out for feeding and that pretty much was about it. When "nurse" said it was time baby to return because "mother needs her rest) it was scooped up and taken back and often bended knee wouldn't change this. You wanted to see your baby? Go stand outside the nursery viewing window with everyone else.
Trying to reach a physician on evenings, nights, or weekends and getting nothing but his service who informed you either "yes, we gave him the message", or "I'm sorry Dr. X isn't taking calls" and or "hasn't called in for his messages"..... If it was a real emergency you could get the service to start calling around in an attempt to find the elusive doctor.
Non computerized NCLEX exams, waiting for months to receive either a large brown envelope with a wall certificate and wallet license, or heaven forbid only a letter...
State boards being given once or twice a year and some GNs worked themselves up into a frenzy almost to the point of becoming physically ill.
It was a two day affair with pencils and paper only. Here in NYC was given at the now gone New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle.
Specializes in Home Health, Mental/Behavioral Health.
I'm a young'n' but I enjoy reading through this thread SO MUCH!!! My grandmother, who I miss very much, was a nurse in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. She used to tell me stories of which include a lot of which has already been shared. You can say she was was my inspiration! Love it! REALLY hope this topic keeps the experiences a rollin' on in! :)
Non computerized NCLEX exams, waiting for months to receive either a large brown envelope with a wall certificate and wallet license, or heaven forbid only a letter...
All through school we heard about the 2 different envelopes. So when I got a white, business-size envelope 7 weeks after taking boards, I just knew I had failed. The truth was the envelope contained a letter stating I had passed & my scores for each test were listed. The funniest thing was my highest score was in OB which I hated & my lowest was in Peds where I've worked since graduation.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Team nursing.
When AIDS was still a fairly new diagnosis.
Total Quality Management.
Nursing school before online classes.
No smart phones, I Pods, or online resources for drug information, etc. You had to use books - drug guides/reference books.
Keeping a small piece of paper in your pocket with the number of drops/min for different IV tubing calibrations for ease of counting drops when regulating an IV with a roller clamp.
When the needleless system was still quite new.
Team nursing was an excellent way to take care of a lot of patients with less staff. I learned an awful lot from the LPNs and NAs on my team. They're the ones that taught me to be a nurse!
I remember having a calculator in my pocket (once they actually invented pocket calculators, because I started nursing before they did) for calculating drip rates. I got so I could calculate six drips in about two minutes because the formulas were so ingrained!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Not for nothing the way that student nurse is drawing syringe photo one posted above looks rather awkward. Am guessing no end of vials ended up hitting the floor. Why is she only holding the vial (more like balancing) with two fingers instead of grasping?
That's how we learned to do it. A few vials hit the floor, of course, but once you got the hang of it, it was really easy. And that way you could see where the tip of your needle was with respect to the level of fluid in the vial so you don't draw up tons of air. I still draw up saline that way.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
A few more:
Places where you had windows that actually opened. Fans in patient rooms, nurses station and in halls to circulate air and make some attempt at keeping things cool.
Before HIV/AIDS epidemic outside of surgical technique rarely anyone wore gloves regardless of where their hands were going. Excessive vomitus, diarrhea, etc... you just dove in and got things done. Remember being told off by one nurse at the time that one was going to give offense to patients by wearing gloves.
Trying to reach a physician on evenings, nights, or weekends and getting nothing but his service who informed you either "yes, we gave him the message", or "I'm sorry Dr. X isn't taking calls" and or "hasn't called in for his messages"..... If it was a real emergency you could get the service to start calling around in an attempt to find the elusive doctor.
I remember windows that opened. It's probably just as well they don't anymore. I once worked on a men's ward on the first floor where the hookers climbed in the windows ever Tuesday to service the male patients who could afford it. And the patients who would dispose of contraband by tossing it out the open window when the nurse approached.
I remember having to learn to work with gloves on because wearing gloves before HIV was considered to be insulting to the patient.
And I remember having a list of phone numbers for each doctor who did call in our unit -- their office, the cath lab across town, their home, their mistress's home, the country club and the best steakhouse in town. If it was an emergency, someone from the country club would get in a golf cart and go out to the eleventh hole (or wherever he was) to fetch the cardiologist. It was especially excruciating to call the mistress's house and recognize the voice who answered the phone as a colleague of yours . . . .
Just did a quick search -- even NOT purchasing in bulk, they can be obtained for less than $1.00 each. Definitely not cost-effective to wash and reuse them!
How much do you want to bet patients are billed *way* more than $1/ea. for those plastic bed pans?
Leaving aside other things mentioned the whole "bedside kit" is likely a profit center for facilities. I mean when urinals, bed pans, basins, etc... were communal and sent back to central supply there is not much money to be made there, but a huge cost in terms of cleaning and sanitizing. OTOH you can mark-up and bill for those bedside kits and let the patients take them home, or simply throw away.
SororAKS, ADN, RN
720 Posts
Non computerized NCLEX exams, waiting for months to receive either a large brown envelope with a wall certificate and wallet license, or heaven forbid only a letter...