remember when....?

[kjpstmb]

I would like to see examples of how nursing interventions have changed over the past 20+ years.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

There have been many discussions avout this and it is fun to go down memory lane.

We treated fresh MI's with bedrest, sublingual nitro and morphine. There was no Cath lab or TPA. You got to see a multitude of arrythmias depending on where the MI was. NO ICE, NOTHING HOT...it was believed to stress the digestive system therfore stressing the heart and the cold liquid could cause cardiac spasm....they were on bedrest for several days until their enymes came "down" then they were allowed to read a book held no higher than the level of the heart. NO straining or lifting. Cardiac rehab level 2 was that they could wash their face and hands.....tooo funny. We saw ALOT of CHF and left ventricular aneurysms....which are esentially al most non existant due to interventional cardiology. We hung lidocaine drips on all MI's to "quite the heart"...when I think back I'm suprised we didn't do more harm!! lol

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

I remember when we did not use glucometers to dose insulin. We used urine tests- you had to add chemicals to a freshly voided urine sample and then match the resulting colour to a chart to determine the sugar level. I remember standing there as a student, trying to match up the colour of the urine in the test tube - was it this one? or this one?

[nursejoed]

...doing dressings with 1/4 strength Dakin's solution and sometimes diluted betadine.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

Painting bedsores with MOM and then applying a heat lamp

[LegzRN]

One of my nursing instructors told me a story about how they used to use red rubber catheters chilled in ice water for NG tubes

[kcmylorn]

I remember as a student when Galbladders and appendectomies stayed in the hospital for 3 weeks- nothing to eat for days, foley's for at least a week. Do we still 're feed' patients thier bile? bili bags, never wore gloves(yuk), mixing(reconstituting from powder) all my own antibiotics and putting them into 'solusets" hourly outputs included-"dropping" the hourly rate of fluid into a soluset chamber every hour, glass TPN bottles, Hepatitis patients were in strick isolation- door closed, nurse covered head to toe(booties on our shoes). Weren't the red rubber NG tubes called cantor tubes and about 3 miles long with a bladder at the end where the physican injected mercury? Pateints were admitted for "GI work-ups" BE's, barium swallows and colonoscopies and EGD's.

[MagsMom]

IV of alcohol to stop preterm labor!

[RNperdiem, RN]

No internet. We did the crossword puzzles in the newspaper on really slow nights.

[hopefulwhoop]

IV of alcohol to stop preterm labor!

When you say alcohol, what kind of alcohol are we talking about here???

[MagsMom]

EtOH - the drinking kind!

[hopefulwhoop]

EtOH - the drinking kind!

Wow! Did it work?