Spinoff : What We Do, What We Used to Do

[NursingAgainstdaOdds]

The HIV thread reminded me of a thread I've wanted to start here for a while. (Apologies if it's been done!)

I love to hear accounts from experienced nurses about how nursing practice used to be, or how different practices have evolved. For example, an experienced traveller shared with me recently how patients with feeding tubes used to have what everyone else had - just pureed like crazy. (Interestingly to me, she also informed me that there was no such thing as a tube-fed patient with obligatory diarrhea. She felt this was because the patients got "real" food. I thought that was very thought-provoking.)

So, please share. Nursing history of all kinds really fascinates me. I wouldn't restrict this to practice-based issues, either - nurse/patient, nurse/doctor, nurse/nurse relationships have also evolved in fascinating ways. Let's hear it!

Edited to Add : I'm also interested if anyone has experiences which exemplify where certain procedural changes originated - i.e. our vigilance with IVs.

[S.T.A.C.E.Y, LPN]

I had a distant family member who has been a paramedic for MANY years tell me that he remembers the days before CPR when he was taught to raise the patients hands over their head to help them breathe.

[fivewestortho]

oh i remember taping butts to side rails and using a heat lamp to dry the open area.

I also remember using mom with the liquid part dumped inthe garbage and the past placed in the mouth and on the tongue, cured crusted mouth still does.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

oh i remember taping butts to side rails and using a heat lamp to dry the open area.

I also remember using mom with the liquid part dumped inthe garbage and the past placed in the mouth and on the tongue, cured crusted mouth still does.

In the babies, we sometimes use the ambu-bag, turned all the way up, on their bottoms when they get bad diaper rash. The mask really concentrates the O2 flow.

We get a new one, of course, in case they need it for what it's intended for.

[fivewestortho]

how aobut sitz baths after surgery. also warm bed pans. We don't even have metal ones anymore. Just plastic. I wonder if they too are thrown away? How about testing urine ketones. Haven't done that in ages?

[danissa, LPN, LVN]

In the babies, we sometimes use the ambu-bag, turned all the way up, on their bottoms when they get bad diaper rash. The mask really concentrates the O2 flow.

We get a new one, of course, in case they need it for what it's intended for.

hey Liz, we do that too! Love that the simplest ideas are used across the ocean and back!

[Agnus]

Wagenstein suction, counting iv drips, glass I V bottles for everything. breaking or bending needles to dispose of them.

Pouring everyone's meds at once and placing them on a card with all the meds on the same tray and then walking from room to room to give each pt their little cup.

Only docs listened to heart and lung sounds and only docs were "smart enough" to interprete the primitive cardiac monitors that produced no print outs (only seen In ICU).

folllowing docs around like puppy dogs on rounds.

[JennyMac]

"YOU HAD to RENT the phone or TV in order to use it"

At my hospital, the patients have to pay $6 a day for the TV and $5 for the phone!

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

At my hospital, the patients have to pay $6 a day for the TV and $5 for the phone!

I work in a heavily Spanish-speaking community, and on the adult side, patients have to pay extra for the Spanish channels on the TV. When I was in NS one of the other students started campaigning to have this changed, but I don't know if it went anywhere.

[lujological]

thanks for the trip down memorary lane.I remember it all.In nursing since 1963.With the exception of the importance of good obeservation,I am thrilled we no longer have to do the things mentioned.I still can"t get used to gloves and will have 1 clean and 1 dirty hand but always use foam handwash.I do remember as a student in 63 being yelled at by a doctor who came in nurses station while i was sitting doing end shift charting because I did not stand and give him my seat.also remember my father being sick in hospital and I was only 11 so I dressed in some of my moms clothes and put on makeup so I could get in to see him.then we found a stairwell that opened unto back parking lot for employees and i snuck my younger brother who was 4 and sisters who were 8 and 10 up to his room.we took turns peeeking down hall and when a nurse headed our way we hid in his bathroom.He had been in for 2 weeks and was real homesick for his children.He had a mild heart attack at 45yo but was doing good and in a private room on a regular unit by then.My mom was at work and I was babysitting my siblings.Devious wasn"t I but there was no way we could visit he wasn't allowed out of room and down to the visitation room.MY baby brother kept asking for him so I took things into my own hands.hope you enjoyed my little tail every word is true!!back to nursing changes-while all new stuff we do is needed I find I have less time with the patients/residents and that is the sad part.The computer use drives me crazy.I am technology challenged!! but we must learn to adapt.thanks for having this thread it has been really interesting!!!

[JennyMac]

I work in a heavily Spanish-speaking community, and on the adult side, patients have to pay extra for the Spanish channels on the TV. When I was in NS one of the other students started campaigning to have this changed, but I don't know if it went anywhere.

A large percentage of my patients speak only Spanish--the Spanish channels come automatically! I also work in nyc, close to your hospital.

[Quickbeam, BSN, RN]

remember my father being sick in hospital and I was only 11 so I dressed in some of my moms clothes and put on makeup so I could get in to see him.

OMG, me too! I was a teenager in the 60's and my mother was in the hospital dying of Hodgkin's Disease. I wasn't allowed in so I'd put on heels and a neighbor's lab coat and sneak in to see her. I'd be very angry if I had been robbed of those memories. We've come a long way!

[Lavslady]

I started my career senior year of HS in 1966, on the work-release program. I worked Dietary in the hospital and every floor (4 floors) had a full dietary kitchen and dietary personel made the food and all patients got the same thing food each meal...no choices. Dietary pushed out the trays on open wheeled aluminum carts and delivered to each individual patient, and picked them up from each room afterwards. Nurses or Nurse's Assistants were NEVER allowed in the Dietary Kitchen.

Over the summer and for the year that I was in LPN School, I worked as a Nurses Assistant in the same hospital. We weren't "certified"...we were taught at the hospital in a 2 week course, how to give baths, make beds, empty bed pans, give back rubs, take vital signs, empty bedside drainage bottles and what our jobs were during a Code Blue. (notify nurse of problem and stay out of the way.) Back-rubs and bedtime snack of beverage and cookies/grahams/fruit for all patients, were part of every evening shift Nurse's Assistant. That's when I learned to hate hairy backs on men...first rub with lotion and hair would all tangle up as I made the swirly movements..then powder and rub in again..yuck. We wore starched gray pinefores over white starched blouses and gray and white caps like a small nurse's cap. We also wore white stockings and white tied leather shoes. Hair was never allowed to touch our collars and no jewerly with exception of wedding or engagement ring.

LPN in 1968, all white dresses uniforms, white nylon stockings, white cap with blue velvet ribbon around the top. Caps were all different, depending on school. Again, white, tie shoes. While testing urine for sugar, Clinitest tab in urine in test-tube boils and makes glass hot enough to burn fingers if held improperly.

And the first on-the-floor blood testing we did, we had to poke their fingers using a syringe needle, and draw the blood up in a tiny little glass tube that was SUPPOSED to aspirate the blood, but usually nurse had to use mouth and suck it up into the tube then hold finger over top to keep blood from dripping back out until you got it back to the utility room where the machine was located to test it.

Whatever happened to Clinitron Beds and Striker Frames? Side-rails? Poseys? Tieing people to their beds or to their wheelchairs tied to the hand-rail. 4-Point posey restraints in bed...Leather straps with sheep-skin lining with locks needing keys to release for the truly unruly...

RN in 1990...white pants and top uniforms and socks with any white shoes...no caps...was disappointed finally a "REAL" Nurse...and no more caps. So many changes over the years, computers, fax machines, much less all the new Medical Technology.

Gloves...yep, I was glad to get them. Finger cots for removing fecal impactions just never did the trick...