I remember the week gloves became mandatory. I was working ED and a patient came running in with a fountain of blood spurting from the top of his head. I grabbed a stack of 4 x 4s and ran towards him. The ED doc was screaming at me to out on gloves. This is ridiculous I thought. Applied pressure, let patient take over and put on my gloves. It was difficult to remember to put them on all the time. But then I remember my first AIDS patient also.
LOL...when I started at one hospital we had a DON who believe a nurse, is a nurse and we floated from the NICU to L&D (until they refused to have anyone from NICU until they had been cross trained), ICU ( because there is sooo much similarity between a 250 male MI and a 800 gm premie), the burn unit (many people threw up) or respiratory ICU (the spit pit, until people started worrying we could bring really nasty bugs back to our unit). We finally got a DON who wouldn't float anyone who hadn't cross trained and it was decided that cross training would be among certain types of units...like mother and children, etc.
1. How about entering a confused patients room to find them using their cigarette lighter to read something, because patients where allowed to smoke back then.
2. The annual education component where the fire department came and a patient's bed with a dummy in it was set on fire so we could practice putting a fire out with a bath blanket.
A dumb waiter for extra food trays and CS supplies. Bedside vaporizers. Going to CS to fill jugs with distilled water and to fetch the precious IV pumps. Sundays when families stopped by to read the census board to see if they knew any of the patients.
Never will forget when I discovered a white cream shoe polish and could get rid of the Sani-white and the chalky junk it made. My shoes were so clean and white and no one paid attention. That was when I was in the Navy and Sani-white was sold by the gallon.
Wow! Great stories-- write down more of them please :).
About 10 years ago, in LTC, I had a patient who remembered the flu pandemic of 1917... She was about 6 & lived in Canada ... Remembered seeing the horse-drawn heorifice go by every day. Her father had to stay home to care for her and her younger siblings who got sick but didn't die-- but several of his cows died because he couldn't leave the house of very sick children to go feed & water the cows
Oh, my lord! Heat lamps shined on stage 3 decubs? Feeding with a 60cc syringe?? Clinitron beds, with the air and sand like granules inside? Those freakin nursing caps??? UGH. Dresses only, no pants. .
canter1221
16 Posts
Being told that, except for sterile procedures, wearing gloves was disrespectful to the patient !