Putting blue dye in the tube feeds so you would know if you were suctioning food from the lungs, also the green poop that it gave.
Painting decubs with betadine and using a blow dryer to dry it on.
Mixing your own 20 of K into your IV bottles, and putting a strip of tape down the side of the glass so you could make sure you weren't ahead or behind on your hourly rates.
Boards only offered twice a year, 5 separate exams (OB, psych, medical, etc.), took two days, had to have your diploma in hand to go into the exam hall; no make up until 6 months later, waited for your results in the mail for at least 6 weeks. If you didn't pass, couldn't work as a grad nurse, which means you promptly lost your job. My head nurse was waiting on the floor for me and my (passing!) letter the next day, as I got off the elevator.
I almost forgot: In NICU, they put the IPPB bladder under the mattresses of preemies in incubators. It would inflate and remind them to breathe. Our first IV 'pumps' in NICU were kangaroos (like a feeding pump). Only steel butterflies- no angiocaths.
But the big thing was NO GLOVES for ANYTHING except sterile procedures/ surgeries.
Specializes in QA, ID/DD, Correctional, Education.
Metal bedpans, urinals and emesis basins which were gathered up by the night shift and put in the bed pan hopper in the dirty utility room every day. I also remember burning my fingers more than once taking those things out so we could slip the sterilized ones into a paper cover, pile them on a utility cart and trundle them down the hall to the clean utility room or put them back into the bedside tables in the patient rooms.
Stock meds on every floor. The metal pill trays which had a hole for the pill cup and a slot for the med cards for that pass. It was sort your med cards pulled from the kardex before each scheduled pass by patient name, check them against the kardex, correct the cards if changes had occurred ( and grumble under my breath that the other shift didn't update the cards), go into the med room and pour the meds for each patient and line them up on the pill tray. Take said tray, put it with water, food if necessary, tongue blades and some paper towels and off down the hall to pass the meds. Yes we carried the tray into each room, put the pill cup into the patient hand, gave them some water and watch them take their meds. Repeat until complete. Then chart said meds on the MAR
Using this system I could pass po meds to 25 people in under 45 minutes & the whole prep for said 25 people took me maybe 10-15 minutes max. Using today's system....much slower especially if an automated dispensing system is used.
JBudd, MSN
3,836 Posts
Putting blue dye in the tube feeds so you would know if you were suctioning food from the lungs, also the green poop that it gave.
Painting decubs with betadine and using a blow dryer to dry it on.
Mixing your own 20 of K into your IV bottles, and putting a strip of tape down the side of the glass so you could make sure you weren't ahead or behind on your hourly rates.
Boards only offered twice a year, 5 separate exams (OB, psych, medical, etc.), took two days, had to have your diploma in hand to go into the exam hall; no make up until 6 months later, waited for your results in the mail for at least 6 weeks. If you didn't pass, couldn't work as a grad nurse, which means you promptly lost your job. My head nurse was waiting on the floor for me and my (passing!) letter the next day, as I got off the elevator.