Yes, I remember the clipboards at the bottom of the bed, the fob watch I wore, the smoking room at the end of the ward, paper nursing hats, hand cranks on the beds, metal bed pans, charting in different color pens, strict visiting hours, glass thermometers, sphygmomanometers in steel boxes, the evening tea round for the patients on an old metal cart with jugs of steaming cocoa before bed, drawing up all our own vasopressor drips and doing the math on a calculator.
And I remember being a patient and being able to smoke...in bed in the middle of the ward!
Milk of Magnesia and merthiolate mixture to decubs..then patient turned on their side and their butt cheeks taped to the side rail so the heat lamp could hit the affected area .
ICU nurses drew all the ABGs for the hospital
Having to do 3 intubations a quarter to stay proficient because we intubated any patients that required it at night- respiratory therapy went home at 9 pm and didn't return until 8 the next morning
Cardiac output measurements done with iced saline
Being the only nurse on duty in the ER from 11-7 while the Dr. slept - no secretary so the nurse checked the patient in, got the insurance information, then took them back and did the assessment and ordered all labs and X-rays necessary BEFORE you woke the Dr. The only exception was an incoming level 1 and you woke the Dr. to give orders to the medics.
Putting in in various lines at the bedside , sometimes with fluoroscopy and sometimes without.
Glass suction bottles
Narcotics and heparin in tubexes with rubber caps
Nurses wore white ( and navy blue sweaters )
Punching the the time clock
Milk and molasses enemas mixed up in dietary and sent to the floor
Triple H enemas- high, hot, and helluva lot
Metal trachs and having to remove the inner cannula to clean it, then reinstall- nothing gagged me more than respiratory crud
Only one Dr. In the house all night - the ER doc- so if there was a code and he was busy, the ICU/CCU code nurse ran that code . I remember the first time I had to do this at the ripe old age of 21. I was a wreck but the Dr. gave the best advice - they are already dead if a code has been called..anything you do can only help
My mentor quizzing me on rhythms and treatments during a quiet spell...while she smoked her cigarette in the ICU lounge
I started my nursing career in a very small community hospital , in the combined 10 bed ICU/CCU that was also under the same manager as the ER.. so we rotated between the 2 places. It might not have been a university hospital environment , but boy did I learn.
Thanks for the memories AN....all these posts brought a smile to my face this morning.
My diploma school, which was hospital based, (graduated 1974) had a white school uniform with the school name on pocket. Our caps were how people were able to tell year. Vertical stripe blue, first year; vertical yellow second; another vertical blue for third year seniors. Graduation horizontal black strip around the top of cap. Pulling the stupid caps!! Our senior year we basically did all everything the nurses did for entire shifts. ! unless there was a problem. Med nurse for entire floor, charge nurse, team leader. Our instructors came around once a shift. The actual nurses for the unit helped (a vast majority had graduated from our school). Just (as I remember it) the year before I started, you couldn't be married, and had to live in dorms. If you stayed after graduatation, for I think three years, your entire tuition was taken care of. If you didn't but had student loans, if you worked in certain areas, a certain percentage was paid off each year, and you could pay off almost the entire amt by 10yras. On top of that the nursing loans were 3%. Best education EVER (although I hated it at the time). When I graduated, and got license, I was able to function. Still some culture shock, but still. Testing lipid levels by spinning a HCT, and checking for excessive white "fat". Running and reading HCTs ourselves.
white shoe polish for your nursing shoes - never looked right!! LOL
Ahh, good ole Sani-White. Known and loved (or hated) by nurses and or mothers of toddlers for ages.
If you wore these:
Or these:
Or maybe these:
Then you used this:
Guess there is a point to "starched whites" being sort of high maintenance. On your days off at least one probably was fully devoted to washing (and maybe ironing) your uniforms (if the hospital didn't), polishing duty shoes and washing (with perhaps starching and ironing) your cap.
I guess I gotta ways to go before I'm one of the cool kids 
RNperdiem, RN
4,592 Posts
On slow nights, we would waste time doing the crossword puzzles in the days before electronic devices.