The good ole days of nursing...share your stories!

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm am currently being precepted by a well seasoned nurse. She graduated from a diploma program in the mid 70s and has been a nurse ever since. I love the stories she shares about going to nursing school, sitting for nclex, and all the things she has seen and done over the years. There is such a big difference from when she started as a nurse to what nursing has become now. I am very interested in hearing stories from other nurses who have been in the field awhile as well as opinions on changes with schooling, work ethic, etc. Im interested in hearing comparisons of nursing now vs. back in the day. Any and all stories and opinions appreciated :)

Specializes in ER.
Does the "Welcome Wagon" still make rounds? Volunteers from the Gift Shoppe used to go room to room with a cart abundantly stocked with all kinds of sundries (that were also sold inside the Gift Shoppe) and snacks, etc.

I wore Clinics, too. Comfy at the time. Of course, I was younger and skinnier!

I don't know why they stopped bringing a wagon with treats around. It was a great break for patients even if they didn't buy. They could look, and chat.

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Oh yes, the days of pelvic traction, Demerol 50mg and Phenergan 25 mg IM q 4 hours prn. Valium IM q 4 hours prn back spasms. Forget the prn part. You just brought it every 4 hours because you knew they'd ask. They'd get enough to drop a bull elephant dead in its tracks and then they would ask for a cup of coffee. 20 minutes later they'd be walking in the hall. Back then all you had to do was utter the magic words 'back pain' and get a 2 week vacation in the hospital.

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I remember and dearly miss being able to wear whatever scrub top or bottom we wanted and don't forget the shoes to match! Now we all look like little Smurf's...la la la la la la

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Specializes in PACU.

As a student....

In clinical I never talked or consulted another nurse outside my own instructor..... she was responsible for the patents the students took that day.

Had to line up before clinical and my instructor walked behind and in front for inspection... Nails had to be short enough they could not be viewed from palm side of hand, no hair could be touching the collar, and made sure we were wearing slips so you could not see panty lines under the white dress.

Getting my nursing cap caught up in a patients curtain when I tried to whip it shut.

If you were ten minutes late to clinical you were sent home for the day.. miss more then 1 clinical (3 days total in a Monday-Friday year long program) and you were out.. no make-up days.

As a student I had to write out my nurses notes (using SOAPIER) and my instructor read them and corrected them before I could re-write them into the patients chart.

As a nurse...

I remember the different colors for charting depending on the shift you work.

All the nursing notes for the day were kept in a shelf on the wall outside the patients door that folded up.... no one ever worried someone would unfold it and read them.

Patients came in the night before surgery to be prepped and ready the next morning.

Every patient got demerol/phenergan mix IM before being taken down to the OR.

Accidentally taking the narc keys home and having to drive back to work that night, because there is only one set.

Standing when the doctors came for rounds, giving up chairs and getting coffee.

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Specializes in nurseline,med surg, PD.

Incontinent patients were cleaned up bare handed. The only gloves were sterile gloves used for sterile procedures. Thermometers had mercury in them. I had a patient who swallowed her thermometer. Patients having surgery were admitted the night before so they could get a soap suds enema and take a Phisohex shower, and get a back rub.You had to give pre op meds before they went off to surgery, demerol, and phenergan (IM) and something else to dry up secretions. Everybody got a complete bed bath the day after surgery.

We had to wash, starch, and iron our caps. We had to apply white polish to our leather shoes, and wash the shoe strings. There was one shoe store in the big city where you could buy your Clinique shoes. You HAD to wear your cap or you would be disciplined.

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Specializes in Cardiac Care.
Patients having surgery were admitted the night before so they could get a soap suds enema and take a Phisohex shower, and get a back rub.You had to give pre op meds before they went off to surgery, demerol, and phenergan (IM) and something else to dry up secretions. Everybody got a complete bed bath the day after surgery.

I think I'm remembering this correctly, but it seems that we gave Demerol and Vistaril preop many times. I'd forgotten about being admitted the night before surgery so the patient could be bathed. And we gave backrubs routinely with HS care. Do you remember the shave prep? We had a manual that told us where to shave for any kind of surgery. I remember that for any abdominal procedure, the shave line was from nipples to knees.

All nursing staff wore white with white professional shoes; no sneakers. OR staff wore hospital blue scrubs, as did the people in central supply. I think in my hospital even the dietary staff wore white.

Someone previously mentioned gloves. We didn't wear them unless they were sterile for a procedure, like putting in a foley. Gloves were considered offensive to the patient because you were sending the message that they were dirty. IV starts, medications, toileting, personal care...it was all done barehanded.

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Specializes in ICU, LTACH, Internal Medicine.
Does the "Welcome Wagon" still make rounds? Volunteers from the Gift Shoppe used to go room to room with a cart abundantly stocked with all kinds of sundries (that were also sold inside the Gift Shoppe) and snacks, ets.

Yup, still here and rounding twice a day. We quietly hate it, as the LOLs from volunteering department who run it constantly bother nurses with demands to do something so that this or that patient would be able to enjoy their goodies "because he/she WANTS IT". Many of them just cannot get an idea of NPO meaning "nothing per mouth".

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I'm a diploma grad and now a nurse educator. The difference between then and now is BIG! As students, we were responsible for covering all three shifts. For OB training, we were assigned a patient at 32 weeks gestation and followed her through everything. We accompanied her to prenatal visits, and we were on call and had to meet her in L&D no matter what day or time she went into labor (My patient went into labor at 2:00 am on a Sunday morning). We stayed with our patient through labor whether it lasted two hours or two days! We stayed until she delivered and took care of her and the baby until they were discharged. Students don't get that kind of training anymore. We also had an extensive OR rotation where we observed a procedure, then scrubbed and circulated. Most students today don't even get an OR rotation.

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Specializes in nurseline,med surg, PD.
Incontinent patients were cleaned up bare handed. The only gloves were sterile gloves used for sterile procedures. Thermometers had mercury in them. I had a patient who swallowed her thermometer. Patients having surgery were admitted the night before so they could get a soap suds enema and take a Phisohex shower, and get a back rub.You had to give pre op meds before they went off to surgery, demerol, and phenergan (IM) and something else to dry up secretions. Everybody got a complete bed bath the day after surgery.

We had to wash, starch, and iron our caps. We had to apply white polish to our leather shoes, and wash the shoe strings. There was one shoe store in the big city where you could buy your Clinique shoes. You HAD to wear your cap or you would be disciplined.

I mean Clinic not Clinique.

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I graduated from a Diploma Program in 1995, one of the last Diploma programs in my area. In 2006 I earned my BSN, but am so glad I was educated through the Dioloma program. We had so much more clinical time with hands on nursing care in various hospitals and all types of units. One thing that was really really pushed was the comfort of the patient. Not only were we expected to learn the meds, procedures, disease processed, etc. we were taught that just as important is to tidy the patient's room, provide basic personal care- yes we had classes on how to make a bed and give a bed bath. This is something I don't see too much anymore.

On Easter I was with my 97 year old great aunt while she was slowly slipping away. I was the one who requested the mouth swabs and performed frequent mouth care for her comfort. I was the one who asked for lotion so I could massage her dry and cracked skin of her arms, legs, and back. Not only to help with comfort and circulation, but the basic comfort of human touch. I turned down the alarms on her monitors- what did it matter if her sats were dropping, she was a no code and it was the natural process for her sats to slowly decline. I requested an order for morphine to help with her air hunger. I know hearing is the last sense to leave, so I played calming music on my iPhone. She slipped away peacefully and quietly. The nurses caring for her were wonderful and best of all, they told me that they learned much from me that night about comfort care. We must not forget that comfort is one of the most important part of being a nurse and can make a big difference. I feel like these basic things aren't taught as much these days.

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That is so beautiful Annintenn! I'm a BSN not a diploma grad but I came along in that era when patient care and comfort were our number one and only goal.

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Not necessarily. A lot of the (young) chronically mentally ill used to get dumped in nursing homes because there was nowhere else for them to go. If you didn't have family willing and able to have you live with them, you were just SOL. This was back when the only options for psychiatric treatment were inpatient hospitalization or 50 minutes once a week in someone's office, and there were no such things as group homes, residential programs, IOPs, day treatment programs, etc. They were not getting appropriate psychiatric treatment, and, when they decompensated (or just got frustrated and lost it), they could be dangerous to the frail older residents. My career has been in psychiatric nursing, and we used to see a lot of those individuals on inpatient psych units in the '70s and '80s. Eventually, there were class action lawsuits brought against various states around the country, and one of the outcomes was that the Federal government required states to develop some mechanism to make sure the chronically mentally ill had access to appropriate treatment and weren't getting warehoused in SNFs. Another outcome was the development of a wide range of treatment and living options for the chronically mentally ill. That's part of the "good old days of nursing" that I don't

miss. Younger people who are in "rehab centers" nowadays are actually there for rehab. They're not 25 year old male schizophrenics who are living in SNFs, with nothing to do all day but watch TV, smoke, and eat chips, expected to be in bed by 8 PM each night and stay there quietly until 8 the next morning, not getting any real treatment for their illness, and having nothing else to look forward to for the rest of their lives.

What do Psych patients have to look forward to for the rest of their lives today? Really? Yes, there are some group homes, state long-term facilities for forensic pts in particular, lots of meds, shock treatments, therapies, maybe a little job, being on disability, but also periods of homelessness and loads of illicit drugs and alcohol. HOnestly not all that much better.

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