Specializes in Early Intervention, Nsg. Education.
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?"
Specializes in Crit Care; EOL; Pain/Symptom; Gero.
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.
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.
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....
Specializes in ER, ICU/CCU, Open Heart OR Recovery, Etc.
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.
Specializes in Pedi; Geriatrics; office; Pedi home care..
My nurses cap getting caught on the apparatus on orthopedic beds.
Uniform pants ("whites") inappropriate for work. Uniform dresses only.
Isolation gowns were surgical gowws, made of heavy cloth; and we're HOT. Come out of isolation drenched in sweat.
Isolation patients/rooms meant hair covered, masks; gowns (must be long enough to reach tops of shoes) ; shoes covered; and gloves (first job did not have disposable gloves).
Sterilizing bed pans and urinals every 24 hours (night shift; each area had a dishwasher type sterilizer in the dirty utility room). Disposable ones were for isolation rooms only.
Non-disposable gloves that went into a special bag for central supply to bed cleaned daily.
And, my list could go on and on. I graduated nursing school in 1975.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Reusable surgical drapes and gowns made of linen. Having to patch the holes.
And I'm not even that crusty! My facility had reusable linen surgical gowns for the first 3 years I worked there. They had stopped using the linen drapes the year before I started.
Got so tired of chasing narc keys, we had two sets, that I made brightly colored, corded lanyards; long enough to go around your neck and fit into your white nursing tunic pockets, so as not to hit the pt when you leaned over. What with having two sets, the second could get carried off despite narc count getting done. Walked into a local bar near the hosp where many went after a 3-11, and the evening supervisor just looked at me and smilingly said "narc keys?". That dang lanyard was still around my neck.
Having to pay to have the TV turned on in your room. Except on Bronco Sundays; the auxillary turned on everyone's TV for that! and off again in the evening.
mercurysmom
156 Posts
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