Only Crusty Old Bats will remember..

[Pepper The Cat]

So, I really need a fun thread right now. We've done similar things before and it's always fun.

so, things Crusty Old Bats(COB) remember that new nurses today will not.

1. The clunk your uniform makes when you drop it in the laundry hamper and you realize you came home with the narcotic keys.

2. The splat the over full paper chart makes when you drop it on the floor. Papers everywhere. 15 mins getting everything back together.

3. The smell of the smoking lounge .

4. Nurse and Docs smoking at the Nsg Station.

5. Trying to match the colour of the urine in the test tube to determine the sugar level.

+1? +2? Which one?

OK my fellow COBs. Jump in!

[txbornnurse]

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.

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

*Time-taping IV bags

* 1/4 strength Dakin's solution dressings

* sanitizing metal bedpans

[Nobody00]

*Time-taping IV bags

* 1/4 strength Dakin's solution dressings

* sanitizing metal bedpans

So what do you use now?

We sanitise plastic bedpans and bowls. Still have some metal ones lying around only used when sanitisers aren't working and dirty ones pile up.

[txbornnurse]

So what do you use now?

We sanitise plastic bedpans and bowls. Still have some metal ones lying around only used when sanitisers aren't working and dirty ones pile up.

Disposable bedpans for the most part.

[Nobody00]

Disposable bedpans for the most part.

That sounds like a dream…

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

So what do you use now?

We sanitise plastic bedpans and bowls. Still have some metal ones lying around only used when sanitisers aren't working and dirty ones pile up.

Disposable bedpans for the most part.

That sounds like a dream…

Plastic bedpans and basins are reusable but "single patient only" -- they get tossed (or sent home) when the patient discharges, never used for a different patient.

When I was in clinicals during nursing school, I was told that the plastic ones can't be adequately sterilized -- micro scratches in the surface of the plastic can harbor bacteria that sanitizing solution may not reach.

Plus, the cost for a simple plastic molded item that is purchased in bulk is probably cheaper than the cost in manpower (collecting / cleaning / redistributing), cleaning solutions, and machinery necessary to wash/reuse the item.

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

Plus, the cost for a simple plastic molded item that is purchased in bulk is probably cheaper than the cost in manpower (collecting / cleaning / redistributing), cleaning solutions, and machinery necessary to wash/reuse the item.

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!

[beckysue920]

​Porcelain denture cups which had to be autoclaved.

Plasticized stool specimen containers that had to be hand carried to the lab. (As an aside, a co-worker and I both had to obtain specs from our respective assigned patients. She shook hers and it sounded like marbles. Mine was making a squishy sound. Ugh)

Padded tongue blades taped to the head board.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Having to adjust IV flow rates using a roller clamp & your watch.

When I was in nursing school 12-13 years ago, we were taught how to do that, even though everyone was using electronic pumps. I wonder if that skill is still being taught in nursing school now?

[Nobody00]

When I was in nursing school 12-13 years ago, we were taught how to do that, even though everyone was using electronic pumps. I wonder if that skill is still being taught in nursing school now?

Yeah taught here and reference cards on IDs have conversion drop rate to mls.

I thought pumps aren't used in some areas and nurses need to know drop rates?

Plastic bedpans and basins are reusable but "single patient only" -- they get tossed (or sent home) when the patient discharges, never used for a different patient.

When I was in clinicals during nursing school, I was told that the plastic ones can't be adequately sterilized -- micro scratches in the surface of the plastic can harbor bacteria that sanitizing solution may not reach.

Plus, the cost for a simple plastic molded item that is purchased in bulk is probably cheaper than the cost in manpower (collecting / cleaning / redistributing), cleaning solutions, and machinery necessary to wash/reuse the item.

Mmm not here… We have a limited stock of them, use and then put into a steriliser in cleaning room. After they go back to stock shelf. Used many-many times and don't remember getting any new stock this year at least. Makes sense about scratches, bottles are quite stained as well - gross.

When I worked agency in rehab hospital they had disposable stuff. Never got to use them though, pts were able to use actual toilets there.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I have not been a nurse long enough to have encountered this as an RN, but I remember, when I was a child, having all our charts stuck on the end of our beds. (no HIPAA then)

I remember nurses being something like "gods". If a nurse wagged her finger and told me to be "good and quiet", I was scared enough never to question her. Must have been all that white from head to toe. They were authorities. Anyhow, this, again, is a memory from my childhood hospitalization.

Open children's wards where there were no less than 20 cribs/beds in the room (again childhood memory).

IV's and venipunture started without gloves on (some of the old school nurses I learned from tore a hole where the index finger would go, to feel the vein)

Patients in the hospital for weeks for, say, open heart; now they are out in like 3 or 4 days!

Practically every kid who had more than a few sore throats, getting tonsillectomies. Just about every kid I knew had theirs out. Nowadays, they recognize their role in the immune system and are more reluctant to remove them.

My great aunt remembered using re-usable syringes and needles (!) way back when

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

IV's and venipunture started without gloves on (some of the old school nurses I learned from tore a hole where the index finger would go, to feel the vein)

I'm not old school . . . I've been a nurse as long as you. Just a tad bit older.

And . . . I do this sometimes.