I work in the OR now, but worked on a post-op/stepdown ICU floor from 1976-1979. All elective surgery patients were admitted at least a day ahead of surgery, sometimes a couple of days if tests were needed. One OLD on-gym had quite a setup going for " his girls". Every one of his patients (with a uterus, that is), had to have a D+C every year. The patient was admitted on Friday afternoon, and he had usually a dozen cases posted every Saturday. The patient had her procedure, relaxed for a day, then went home Monday. He felt that every housewife deseved a weekend off and the hospital was the perfect place for that, 3 meals a day (except for that pesky NPO past midnight on Friday), and being waited on hand and foot by the nurses. He was a real piece of work, paternalistic and condescending. He threw a fit when we quit wearing our caps ( mine got knocked off by a bedside curtain and fell into a bedside commode which a patient had just used), and would look at a nurse (sans cap) and say, " I need a nurse to help me." When the nurse informed him that he did indeed have a nurse, his reply was, "How would I know that? You don't look like a nurse."
Patients stayed in the hospital for a (now) laughable amount of time. Hernia and hemmorhoid patients a week, cholecystectomy patients 10 days. And all patients stayed in the hospital until they were well enough to go home, there were no rehabs, and I don't remember any home health care. We would receive a discharge order, someone found a wheelchair, the nurse assigned to that patient packed up the room (and remember that patients were in the hospital for at least a week, usually more, and every one and their brother sent flowers, get well cards, fruit and chocolate baskets), and we wheeled them to the car. They left with our best wishes, but no discharge instructions or follow up instructions. By the time you got back from the discharge, there was usually another patient on the way up to occupy that bed.
How about dropping a full bottle of hyperal and breaking both the bottle and the sink in the first week of your new job as s graduate nurse!
On my first day as a nurse working in a med-surg unit, I knocked over a gigantic bottle of tincture of benzoin. The smell rafted throughout the entire unit, and the housekeepers had to come with a special machine and cleaner to get it cleaned. The poor patients in the room were very sick and nauseated. I didn't score many good.points that day! I'm still embarrassed by it!
Patients used to be able to come in the hospital for a diagnosis of "acute pharyngitis" and stay for a week with qid throat irrigations and q4 hr. pain meds. And if any patient uttered the magic words "back pain," they could stay for weeks and get whatever narcotic was their personal favorite and as often as they liked! Ah, the good old days.
I actually love the smell of benzoin, but not in the amount that you describe! We used benzoin on the skin to both toughen the skin and hold the adhesive tape on the dressing. We changed dressings once a day, and if the skin wasn't protected by the benzoin, it would blister and rip when the dressing was removed.
I actually love the smell of benzoin, but not in the amount that you describe! We used benzoin on the skin to both toughen the skin and hold the adhesive tape on the dressing. We changed dressings once a day, and if the skin wasn't protected by the benzoin, it would blister and rip when the dressing was removed.
Yep! The patient who had the bottle on her bedside had massive, complex abd dressings. She was so miserable and then I go and knock over that bottle, and the housekeepers had to come in with that "special" machine to clean it up!
Specializes in OR 35 years; crosstrained ER/ICU/PACU.
Yes, I'm an "old" OR nurse, since 1982. And yes, the docs & staff smoked in our break room. We certainly saw plenty of nasty-looking lungs in surgery, too! A few of the nurses smoked in our locker room, till some of us complained about having to put smoke-smelling clothes on after our shift! Our scheduler smoked as well, & her office was right in the patient holding area, although it was closed off, it was all windows! The Cysto docs used to bring their coffee cups right to the Cysto room, too. YUCK. I'm glad those days are gone.
**You say that like it's old news. Not sure why, because I had exactly that in 1995 - along with multiple foraminotomies - to free up nerve roots that were so compressed I couldn't feel my toes on either foot; and had severe foot drop on the right side. Plus, severe sciatica down both legs, well past fingertip level, which seemed to be the criteria my surgeon was waiting for in order to put me on the surgery schedule. All the while this was developing, I was working a full time day shift schedule in a busy 9 room OR as a CST.
I finally reached the "point of no return" the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, and was sent home on Short Term Disability by my supervisor, who had walked into our locker room while I was struggling into my scrub pants with tears rolling down my face from the pain. She knew I had been seeing the surgeon and why, and she helped me into her office across the hall, and we filled out the paperwork. Fortunately, the schedule on a Friday before a long Summer holiday weekend was very light, so my not being there to scrub cases wasn't that big of a deal.
The surgery was done the middle of June, and I was the very first "Guinea Pig patient" in their Physical Therapy's brand new "Back To Work Therapy" program which ran like a full time job itself, five days a week, from 8 to 4. I went back to work on a light schedule, but full time hours, the day following Labor Day weekend. It's been easy to remember the time period because of the Holidays involved! That surgery bought me almost five more years full time, very busy work, much of it as a Traveler.
I had to stop again in 1999, and have the whole thing repeated, plus a fusion with bone graft and screws and stabilizing rods in August of that year. By early December I was ready to go back to work. No more Traveling, but working full time locally. And I did that until 2012.
And that was the end of my working days. For good. But I wouldn't have undone anything I did, because they bought me so much more time at the work I loved. Maybe lumbar lamis are "old hat" - I don't know, I guess, because I've been out of the loop for a while. They just don't seem like it to me!
sop832
54 Posts
I work in the OR now, but worked on a post-op/stepdown ICU floor from 1976-1979. All elective surgery patients were admitted at least a day ahead of surgery, sometimes a couple of days if tests were needed. One OLD on-gym had quite a setup going for " his girls". Every one of his patients (with a uterus, that is), had to have a D+C every year. The patient was admitted on Friday afternoon, and he had usually a dozen cases posted every Saturday. The patient had her procedure, relaxed for a day, then went home Monday. He felt that every housewife deseved a weekend off and the hospital was the perfect place for that, 3 meals a day (except for that pesky NPO past midnight on Friday), and being waited on hand and foot by the nurses. He was a real piece of work, paternalistic and condescending. He threw a fit when we quit wearing our caps ( mine got knocked off by a bedside curtain and fell into a bedside commode which a patient had just used), and would look at a nurse (sans cap) and say, " I need a nurse to help me." When the nurse informed him that he did indeed have a nurse, his reply was, "How would I know that? You don't look like a nurse."
Patients stayed in the hospital for a (now) laughable amount of time. Hernia and hemmorhoid patients a week, cholecystectomy patients 10 days. And all patients stayed in the hospital until they were well enough to go home, there were no rehabs, and I don't remember any home health care. We would receive a discharge order, someone found a wheelchair, the nurse assigned to that patient packed up the room (and remember that patients were in the hospital for at least a week, usually more, and every one and their brother sent flowers, get well cards, fruit and chocolate baskets), and we wheeled them to the car. They left with our best wishes, but no discharge instructions or follow up instructions. By the time you got back from the discharge, there was usually another patient on the way up to occupy that bed.