Reminiscing

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Talking the other day at work about how much things have changed since our training days in the 60s and 70s.The young ones couldnt believe that there were designated areas for different years of training in the meal rooms.We werent allowed to enter a lift before our senior nurses or doctors.I can remember that if someone died on your shift you were responsible for that person till they had been removed to the morgue.Had to stay back once 2 hours after my shift ended at 11pmbecause of that and still had to start at 6 in the morning.Split shifts were normal.The opening of pillow cases had to face away from the doorway.(still do that out of habit).Testing urine using a bunsen burner.What do others remember?

Specializes in LTC, Home Health, L&D, Nsy, PP.
Talking the other day at work about how much things have changed since our training days in the 60s and 70s.The young ones couldnt believe that there were designated areas for different years of training in the meal rooms.We werent allowed to enter a lift before our senior nurses or doctors.I can remember that if someone died on your shift you were responsible for that person till they had been removed to the morgue.Had to stay back once 2 hours after my shift ended at 11pmbecause of that and still had to start at 6 in the morning.Split shifts were normal.The opening of pillow cases had to face away from the doorway.(still do that out of habit).Testing urine using a bunsen burner.What do others remember?

I don't remember testing urine with a bunsen burner, but the other day I had been drinkning some apple juice from one of the containers we use to empty catheter bags in (of course it was clean) and walked in to find the MD holding it up to the light "examining" it. When he asked who's this was (thinking it was urine), I took it from him, took a drink and said, "mine". :D

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Specializes in pure and simple psych.
I don't remember testing urine with a bunsen burner, but the other day I had been drinkning some apple juice from one of the containers we use to empty catheter bags in (of course it was clean) and walked in to find the MD holding it up to the light "examining" it. When he asked who's this was (thinking it was urine), I took it from him, took a drink and said, "mine". :D

Oh, my oh my. Don't know whether to :barf01: or :roll .

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Specializes in Emergency.

Oh I love reading this, it brings back so many memories!

How about counting IV drips! We had mini and maxi tubings and when giving Medications such as lidocaine or dopamine we used the mini tubing and counting the drops! We had a few IV "controlers" we had a little thing we clamped over the drop chamber and it counted the drops!

When working in CCU 30 years ago (YIKES!) we would get patients up from the ER they had muscle twitching and hallucinations from Lidocaine OD, it was so common because the ER had them on a high dose to control the PVC's, we would simly turn down the drip and they got better.

To call a code was called "pull the phone" because we had a red phone on the wall, when we pulled the reciever off the hook then the operator knew to call the code. And when I first got approved to defribrilate patients I had to go before a board of 5 cardiologists for an oral exam!!

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a couple more:

we mixed our hyperal solutions in the med room ourselves. dirty old place...

remember doing cardiac outputs in the icu by injecting ice water....

cardiac patients were not allowed ice water or cold beverages, could not get out of bed for a week.

uninsured patients were put in a ward.... 6 beds

heaven forbid you go home with the narcotic keys in your pocket.

scultetous binders? i was a pro at that!

pts got backrubs, hs snacks, and fresh drawsheets/pillowcases at bedtime.

we had to kneel in front of the supv if it appeared our skirt was too short so that she could measure how many inches above the knee it was

we had bottles of concentrated KCl so that we could mix our IV solutions (oh man, JCAHO would have a seizure!)

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Specializes in OR.
ha ha ha, these would be funny if my alzheimers would allow me to remember!!

remember starting IV's with butterfly needles, the metal needle stays in the patient? putting tape on iv bottles to time them? (no iv pumps back then). back pain pts were put in lumbar or bucks traction and stayed in bed forever.

if a doctor walked into the unit, you had to get up out of your chair.

those little medication cards..... one color for qd, bid, tid, etc. then you put all your meds out on a tray with the little cards stuck in there too. god forbid you dump over that tray. we used to compare who had the biggest stack of little cards.....

we smoked at the nurses station.

clysis? anyone remember this? great trivia question, i think they still do this at vet clinics

They still teach time taping because at my hospital. not everyone gets a pump. Thank God we're not expected to get up out of our chair for a doc anymore- I've done it to be very nice when the doc in question wasn't feeling well or was as old as the hills but only because I felt like being nice. And said doc always thanked me...In clinical, for Nursing 1 we were expected to do the manual BPs. Later on, most instructors allowed you to use a dinemap but you were expected to know how to do a manual if the reading was funky or there were no dinemaps available. I was also taught to count drops for IV rates in case a pump wasn't available.We had many "old school" instructors and I'm glad about that...
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the other day I had been drinkning some apple juice from one of the containers we use to empty catheter bags in (of course it was clean) and walked in to find the MD holding it up to the light "examining" it. When he asked who's this was (thinking it was urine), I took it from him, took a drink and said, "mine". :D

HEE, HEE, HEE!!! That is so funny! I have always wanted to do that but I keep saving it for the perfect time:D :chuckle :D :chuckle

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a couple more:

we had bottles of concentrated KCl so that we could mix our IV solutions (oh man, JCAHO would have a seizure!)

Yeah! Or a coronary!

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
They still teach time taping because at my hospital.

We still do it lol.

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Specializes in Too many to list.
They still teach time taping because at my hospital. not everyone gets a pump. Thank God we're not expected to get up out of our chair for a doc anymore- I've done it to be very nice when the doc in question wasn't feeling well or was as old as the hills but only because I felt like being nice. And said doc always thanked me...In clinical, for Nursing 1 we were expected to do the manual BPs. Later on, most instructors allowed you to use a dinemap but you were expected to know how to do a manual if the reading was funky or there were no dinemaps available. I was also taught to count drops for IV rates in case a pump wasn't available.We had many "old school" instructors and I'm glad about that...

No dinemaps in LTC's usually. The IV kits usually come with one of those little plastic devices to regulate drip rate just in case of IV pump malfunction so the pharmacy won't have to send anyone out to you in the middle of the night.

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Hey don't lose some of these skills! New grads- learn them!

Did gravity drips with antibiotics and fluids a lot last year after Katrina... just not enough pumps to go around! Of course we do them up here in the OR, too but that's a little different!

I once went to a homecare case, got the kid to school 30 min away from home (she was having a great AM) then realized she had no pulse ox in her bag. She was a pretty unstable resp kid! No answer at home! Borrowed another kids to spot check as able but had to do a lot of old fashioned assessments. Whew, forgot how hard it was to monitor resp status without the pulse ox... and yet how much more reliable in a way!!

I've only done subQ fluids on dogs and cats, I can't imagine it being easy on people though, pets have looser skin.

Still don't trust dynamapps! Bet I never will although I just have to cope with them in peds.

Dumping buckets full of ice into the metal bin of the croup tent at 3 AM and trying not to wake the baby with the racket.

Hated scrubbing out those big glass Gomco NG suction jars and the tubing and ugly red rubber bullb! (were they 5 gallon jars?) Didn't like cleaning the small mucusy ones either but we still clean the plastic ones in homecare, oh well.

KCL was mixed in pharmacy at night, had to be mixed on the floor at night for new admits. Nursing super might take a while brining it up to us so I always had a spare in my locker after we were no longer allowed to keep in the narc drawer. (Always seemed safe enough to me... I never confused that ominous black and red label for anything, but... Well, I don't miss it either!)

Actually, we mixed everything at night.

Dorito- the kids never pulled my caps off- I have thick hair- but they did leave red tylenol finger prints on them! I had enough for 4 shifts/week- 2 "school caps" and 2 "conventional" caps.

Anyone else steam clams in the OR autoclave on a slow night? I missed that but heard about it recently! LOL.

I still "can't" make a bed without my pillow cases away from the door... hate for all those germs to blow into the pillow :chuckle

Glass thermometers? When playing with the spilled mercury was good for a few moments entertainment... before throwing in the regular trash right along with dirty briefs and leftover lunch?

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
Anyone else steam clams in the OR autoclave on a slow night? I missed that but heard about it recently! LOL.

We steam autoclave corn and shrimp every 4th of July, and THAT'S good.

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Specializes in LTC, Subacute Rehab.

California still wants CNAs to learn manual BPs and glass thermometres for the state boards - ergo, I use manual sphygmomanometre.

We've been taught that the pillowcase must open away from the door... how to make mitred corners on the sheet... all kinds of things that people have mentioned.

And I wear a white dress :uhoh3:

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