"The Good Ol' Days!"

One of my favorite things about allnurses is reading the posted "Stories" of how things used to be. I am amazed to learn about nursing in the past, and how things are different now. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

I was blown away to find out student nurses could not be married during school, when one of my instructors went to a Public Charity Hospital based Diploma Nursing Program.

I loved hearing about having to sterilize everything, and how the student nurses practically ran the hospital. ("A Physician would find a Nurse, begin a Hospital, . . .and start a Nursing School." -Straight out of one of my old Nursing School Text books."

How mental institutions have changed soooooooo dramatically just over the last 50 years!

How cancer was once an instant death sentence.

That Physicians sometimes slept at the bedside of a really sick patient, . . .And made housecalls!!!!

How hospitals were once basically an inpatient hospice before the advent of medicinal treatments such as antibiotics/antivirals.

That one of my instructors from the ADN program worked 7 days a week for $1 per shift her whole first year! (was pinned in 1957).

How one of my professors broke down in tears when a patient with a radio told her that JFK had been shot in Dallas, TX.

How one nurse had every child she had drafted in WWII, so she went as a "Civilian" Nurse to the Corps, and worked at Westpoint post-wartime.

Please add what you know about Nursing in the Past, you don't have to be from a previous era to join in, I'm not, but I promise to cherish each piece of information.

Any books or movies you could recommend a plus too! (History Buff!)

And, if you are from an era before the present, please share some stories about the Nursing Profession, and other memorable events from thah era!!! I can't wait to read them!!! If these stories aren't passed on, it makes me shiver to think we could loose just one!!

What Could You Share about the "Way Things Were Back Then?"

When my little preemie son was in the NICU in 1996, an older nurse told me of the days before pulse oximetry. No alarms to alert a nurse to a sudden drop in the baby's oxygen level.....all they had to go by was a change in skin color.

Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
caps were a pain in the behind. i did have a capping ceremony and got capped -- that was a pain in the behind, too. i've never heard of a caping ceremony or of nurses getting caped, though. i know they wear capes in the uk -- or they used to. is that where you are?

sorry, my migraine is playing tricks on me. i see now you were clearly talking about "caping" ceremonies, not "capping" ceremonies.

Specializes in none.
Sorry, my migraine is playing tricks on me. I see now you were clearly talking about "caping" ceremonies, not "capping" ceremonies.

I'm sorry. Catholic School. Can't spell. But boy, can I play Bingo!

I remember a world before bariatric sized equipment. Stretchers looked like ironing boards with wheels. Beds were hand cranked and sized small enough for a semi-private room.

I do miss specific visiting hours.

Two of the most wonderful things to hear over the PA system:

"Attention, visiting hours will end in "X" minutes"

"Attention, visiting hours are now over"

Bums rush in dulcet tones! *LOL*

For the few that didn't take the hint a quick walk around the ward/floor and a firm but polite "I'm sorry, visiting hours are over now....."

Speaking of PA annoucements, does anyone remember those "Attention, will the owner of a blue Ford.... license plate **** please move your car. You are blocking...."

caps were a pain in the behind. i did have a capping ceremony and got capped -- that was a pain in the behind, too. i've never heard of a caping ceremony or of nurses getting caped, though. i know they wear capes in the uk -- or they used to. is that where you are?

whilst caps do have a certain place in the profession's history, and or for some even present day practice, notwithstanding one's own nostalgic reminiscences on the matter, cannot imagine anyone seriously wanting to go back to them today.

it's sort of like women/girls who pine for *real* playtex rubber or "18 hour" girdles. yeah they did work but you've no idea of the suffering. *lol*

Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.
Two of the most wonderful things to hear over the PA system:

"Attention, visiting hours will end in "X" minutes"

"Attention, visiting hours are now over"

My mom is in and out of rural hospitals in the area and visiting hours are still in effect. They kick everyone out during shift change for two hours of "quiet time" (including when my grandfather was dying and had just been taken off bipap. Our family was informed that it was very special that two of his five kids were "permitted" to stay during the quiet time. He did die during that time. We were all in the waiting room.) and all visitors leave after ten or eleven pm.

My mom is in and out of rural hospitals in the area and visiting hours are still in effect. They kick everyone out during shift change for two hours of "quiet time" (including when my grandfather was dying and had just been taken off bipap. Our family was informed that it was very special that two of his five kids were "permitted" to stay during the quiet time. He did die during that time. We were all in the waiting room.) and all visitors leave after ten or eleven pm.

Just wanted to say didn't wish to sound mean or anything. However there has to be some balance between the free for all that has become most facilities visiting hour policy, and being totally fixed.

IIRC some hospitals and nursing homes in the UK are going back to fixed visiting hours, and especially limiting or restricting guests during meal times. Again IIRC the theory was that patients needed some "down time" to have their meals in peace.

Speaking of smoking. In the early 70's we had oxygen tanks and tents over the patients on oxygen. Patients who smoked would push back the plastic part that was the tent and light up!!!

In the 80's I worked on a unit where almost every nurse smoked. The lounge where we got report was so smoke filled a non smoker could hardly stand it. I bought one of the little devices that was supposed to suck the smoke in. Don't know exactly its mechanism of action but it didn't work anyway.

Speaking of beds, we had a ward (5 beds in one large room and one bathroom) with all hand cranked beds. They only had one height(high) and had step stools to help patients get in.

Have you ever read Nurse by Peggy Anderson? It was written in 1978, and is just an amazing piece of nursing and hospital history- a real slice of life. My favorite parts of that book involve smoking. Doctors smoking in the nurses' station, patients smoking in bed, stuff like that. It seems unbelievable now! It even seems hard to believe that in 1990, there was a smoking lounge in the hospital where I wore a candy-striped pinafore. Did that really happen?

I have a picture from the 70's that was taken of 3 nurses in our local hospital. They are sitting in the lounge, dressed in all white, all holding cigarettes while the table in front of them is sporting cigarette filled ashtrays.

well, let's see... I can probably come up with some thoughts since I've been in nursing for 32 years and practically my whole family on both sides are/were nurses.

-when my grandmother was in nursing school, in the early 1900's the nurses cleaned the floors, and cooked the food in addition to taking care of the pt. Like someone else said-no antibiotics back then, not until WWII, if I am correct. Her student nurse uniform consisted of long skirts with starched white aprons and cuffs on the long sleeves that were changed regularly. And her long cape & her heart shaped cap. I still have her nursing school textbooks and notebooks, some pictures, too. It was a three year diploma program. She worked as a nurse for a long time, in the hospital, private duty and she also went all over town delivering babies. She passed away on the unit where she had been the head nurse.

Nursing school for my mother in law was practically the same story-three year diploma school, nurses had to be single, yes they did almost run the hospital, same uniform only a short one- including cape, cap, pintucked dress uniform. My mother in law tells the story about how she smoked a cigarette on the delivery table right after having my husband. LOL!

My own student nurse uniform was pin striped with an over the head white apron and cap. We didn't have to cook the food or clean. Some things have changed in 30 years but a lot of it is the same. More and more responability as the years go by. I can even remember taking BREAKS, now I work 12 hour shifts and the only break is for lunch for roughly 20 to 30 minutes. I will never understand that-we are supposed to be promoting wellness and healthy living but they can't even lets us take breaks. But I digress!

One thing that I remember from back in the day is having a huge medicine cabinet and pulling the meds out of it. Oh, and the narc count-now we use the pyxis system and we don't have to count narcs anymore. In my first job, we had a lounge right beside the nurses station where we could smoke if we wanted to. we had wooden boxes where we put the dirty needles after we'd cut them with the needle cutter. And doctors would come into a pt room for a procedure, and leave dirty needles, blades--sharps in the bed for the nurse to clean up. Where I work now, we have no Na/CNA's---bummer! Also ---back in the day we could use restraints at our discretion, now we need a doc order, etc. And there were no HIPPA laws. Sometime in the 1990's I stopped wearing white dresses/white hose/caps and started wearing scrubs.

Also---I forgot---I always say that someday I am going to write a book on hospital etiquette! Kids running in the halls, visitors using the patients toilet (ewwwwwwwwwwww!), visitors pressing the call bell to see who will answer, visitors staying late, sitting on the floor, talking too loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yipes, it makes me crazy! I can remember when I was a kid, visiting someone in the hospital and seeing a picture of a nurse all dressed in crisp white with her finger to her lips as if to say shhhhhhhhhhh..... posted on the wall of the hospital right near the elevator. It was a wonderful reminder to mind your manners. Oh, how I would love to see something like this in hospitals these days!