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!

[smf0903]

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?

We had to learn how to rate adjust with the roller clamp in school (graduated in 2014). We were told that during Katrina people didn't know how to adjust rates on IVs because the roller clamp method wasn't being taught anymore. I don't know about other schools but ours teaches it.

[Cafelattee]

well real crusty old bats trained me I graduated in 92 so narc key, paper chart, 3 color pens, debridement with betadine spray machine at bedside with MRSA patients, 9 months hospital stays why said patients got several amputation trying to stop rot, patients still could smoke in the rooms but nurses and doctors had to go outside this was in 92. Contact isolation for hiv positive and all patients were tested on admission and if someone refused then they were treated like the were HIV positive (no not kidding) , getting needle stick and having to wait a year to find out if you were infected, the invention of all things trying to prevent needle sticks, 4 point straight jackets (really wish we could use those again) , giving placebo or not giving your frequent flyer drug addict his/her

My favorite thing was I learned from the crusty old old bats how to handle any dang situation there were shift even when I wanted to cry.

SO thanks Lurlene and Peggy ( 2 crusty army Vietnam nurses that did not take any crap from patients or doctors and scared the crap out of me when I first started working. I can absolutely say that they were not eating there young but were making sure I never got in a situation that I couldn't handle

SO for the special snowflakes that cry when we tell them they are all NOT that special - we are really trying to help you become the best you can be - toughen up

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Narcotic count every shift.

One set of narcotic keys for the floor . . . And that search for the person who had them when you needed to give a pain medicine right NOW.

Getting the locks changed on the narcotic drawer after someone went home with the keys.

Burutrols, roller clamps and counting drops -- even for pressors.

White polyester dresses, white hose and white NurseMates. Man, those dresses itched.

A runner in your LAST pair of white hose as you were getting ready for work.

Back rubs every PM -- part of hs care.

Ash trays in the nurse's station for the pulmonologists and cardiologists.

Calculating drips, cardiac outputs, cardiac indices and SVRs by long division on paper towels. If someone came in to "help" you and cleaned up and tossed out all of your paper towels, you were lost. They probably weren't charted because the docs had the ICU flow sheet.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Tincture of benzoin for staple/suture removal.

Fully and and luxiously stocked supply cabinets for every patient room. Keri Lotion bottles.

Patients in their pink frilly night gowns. Cosmetic bags in the bathroom counter.

Candy strippers.

Women's auxiliary with carts full of magazines and treats.

Gift shops that would rival a souvenoir shop on Main St in Disneyland.

White stockings.

Flowers on every overbed table and window sill.

Nuns who were shrewd business women.

It was all pretty awesome actually.

Candy strippers? Really?

[mercurysmom]

Fire retardant bibs for smokers.

The way the test tube would heat up after you put in the clinitest tablet to check sugar in urine. Not really something one should multitask...I don't know how many test tube I dropped and broke because I held it too close to the bottom.

Cleaning inner cannulas of Jackson trachs. Brush and bowls were from sterile supply closet and H2O2 and sterile water came in big jugs.

Harris drips for post-op gas relief

milk and Molasses enemas...and the smell going in vs coming out (gag)

Being reprimanded for wearing gloves while bathing a newborn because "What will the mother think if you see her baby as "dirty" and refuse to touch it?"

"Pouring meds". The med room had communal bottles of pretty much every tablet and meds were prepared in soufflé cups nested into a green tray with holes. The med cards for each patient went into a slot above each corresponding cup. Pray like heck that the patient didn't ask what meds they were getting and what each one was for. And heaven help you if you slip and fall while carrying the tray!

mm

[Susie2310]

Policies for use of restraints were more lax and it was quite common for patients to be restrained.

Patients being wheeled outside in wheelchairs so they could smoke.

Lots of volunteers in the hospital.

A happier, more positive atmosphere.

Taped report.

[PANYNP]

Placing sandbags around the head of post-op cataract patients, so that the IOL implant wouldn't dislodge. Log rolling these patients with the help of 1 or 2 other nurses. Three to four day hospital stay.

Patients admitted for cervical or lumbar traction.

Measuring cardiac output with CO2 bristojects delivered via the PA catheter proximal port, and warning everyone nearby of the loud "bang" they would hear.

Levophed mixed with iced saline for lavage of GIB patients.

Deflating the cuffs on a Blakemore-Sengstaken tube - terrifying!

Isuprel delivered via syringe pumps.

Administering and titrating IV NTG and Dopamine to cardiogenic shock patients to serve as a physiologic balloon pump prior to the wide use of IABPs.

When coronary artery bypass grafts started being called "CABGs" - how clever everyone thought that was.

Manually changing endless peritoneal dialysis bags before there were cyclers.

MI patients on bedrest for a week.

"S & As": Sugar and acetone tablets for urine testing of diabetic patients.

Taking care of an occasional local TV "celebrity" and telling all your friends and family all about it.

When we were students, "hiding" from our instructors by giving bed baths while kneeling on a bedside chair. If the instructors didn't see our legs beneath the bedside curtain, they didn't think we were in that room.

[Susie2310]

I remember that the physicians were not just respected, but deferred to, and that this was the unstated expectation of our conduct as nursing students. One day in first semester clinicals in the hospital I was taking care of the patient of a particular physician who was well known in the medical community, and while I was doing my head-to-toe assessment and had positioned the patient on their side so I could listen to their lungs, just about to apply my stethoscope, in strode the physician, who asked "How is my patient?" Conscious of being in the presence of this Great Physician, and not having the confidence to speak (in the knowledge I didn't yet know anything about the patient), I immediately stood to the side while the physician listened to the patient's lungs and then left the room.

[sevensonnets]

Lidocaine bolus and drip, precordial thumps, Montgomery straps, RPR's on all admits, spinal fusions flat in bed and logrolled for 30 days, every patient getting a bath and linen change every day whether they wanted it or not, bath blankets, MOM to red spots on rear ends. Oh, and giving the drinkers a nightly beer or glass of wine, whichever was their usual, delivered from the pharmacy. Orderlies (need I say more?) and aides that did what they were supposed to do and you knew you could count on them. Things were much calmer then and coworkers got along for the most part. When a new nurse messed up their team leader took them aside in private to correct them. We didn't know we were supposed to rip them to shreds and then eat them alive....

[SororAKS, ADN, RN]

Narcotic count every shift.

One set of narcotic keys for the floor . . . And that search for the person who had them when you needed to give a pain medicine right NOW.

Getting the locks changed on the narcotic drawer after someone went home with the keys.

Burutrols, roller clamps and counting drops -- even for pressors.

White polyester dresses, white hose and white NurseMates. Man, those dresses itched.

A runner in your LAST pair of white hose as you were getting ready for work.

Back rubs every PM -- part of hs care.

Ash trays in the nurse's station for the pulmonologists and cardiologists.

Calculating drips, cardiac outputs, cardiac indices and SVRs by long division on paper towels. If someone came in to "help" you and cleaned up and tossed out all of your paper towels, you were lost. They probably weren't charted because the docs had the ICU flow sheet.

Doing cardiac outputs with iced saline.

[Susie2310]

every patient getting a bath and linen change every day whether they wanted it or not

Yes, I remember it like this too.

It reminds me of the saying "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

The headache you'd get if you got Nitropaste on your finger when measuring it out.