What was nursing like in the year of 2000?

[jezun]

Hey, so I'm writing a paper for my school project and I need to know what it was like to be a nurse in the year of 2000. I looked into some websites and did not find what I was looking for. Is it any different compared to the present (2019)?

I need to know the experience of being a nurse back then. How much respect did nurses have? How is the technology different from now? Were there any specific restrictions or allowances? Thank you so much.

[egglady, LPN]

I worked nights on New Year's Eve, going from 1999 into 2000. We had flood lights and emergency kits. This is very small town! We had no computers, a lot less paperwork and ALOT more time with patients and actually doing nurse work! Now it's all about documentation.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I was an assisted-living nurse (DON) in the year 2000. Back then it was all about taking care of the residents, teaching staff basic nursing care tasks, and making sure the building was always survey-ready. It was a great job, even though the pay was low and I was in charge of three different ALFs...in other words, I was the regional director without the pay or the title.

When I left nursing in 2014, it was all about profits and documentation. There was no time to be with the residents; several of them desperately needed nursing home or memory care, but we kept them even though they were too much care at that level because they were paying the most to stay there. I had one resident who was a three-person transfer because our management company didn't allow Hoyer lifts in the facility. Unfortunately we had only two caregivers at night so he couldn't be gotten up to use the bathroom, which came up during survey and landed on MY desk, not management's. I got tired of being thrown under the bus, so I left that facility and hung up my stethoscope a year later. Part of it was due to health reasons, but I also was fed up with the working conditions and how the nurse was blamed for EVERYTHING from non-working TV remotes to the availability of snacks to the doctor being late for rounds.

Nowadays, I find that there isn't so much a nursing shortage as there is a shortage of nurses willing to work under those conditions. There are many other ways to make money that aren't so hard on the body or the psyche. That being said, I've never regretted becoming a nurse; I learned a great deal about humanity, and I made a solidly middle-class living while doing it. I took care of some wonderful patients as well as some nasty ones, found out that I really could do three consecutive 12-hour night shifts without dying, and most of all, I learned patience...a skill I used to utterly lack in my pre-nursing days.

[Davey Do]

Interesting questions there, jezun. You know, aside from what egglady and Viva said, computers and paperwork, not all that much has changed in my area, psych, since 2000.

I've worked primarily psych since 1996, and aside from comorbidities, haven't done many intensive medical interventions in the past 20 years.

The 90's were quite a change in psych, with HIPAA and the introduction of atypical dopamine antagonists.

As far as professional respect, I feel that I get more respect these days then I did 20 years ago. But I believe that respect came with age and experience, spiced with a some slight psychotic behavior.

[caliotter3]

Until very recently I got the same rate of pay.

[RNperdiem, RN]

Paper charting. I could fill out a patient flowsheet from vital signs to assesments in way shorter time than it takes to log in, complain that the computer is slow and click all the boxes and fill in all the required fields. On the other hand, computer charting does send orders automatically to pharmacy, xray and lab, and I never have to decipher doctors' handwriting.

In 2000, in my hospital at least, there was less emphasis on BSN or certifications. I work at a big university teaching hospital that in 2000 was looking for RNs with certain kinds of skills or experience. BSN and certifications were extras. Now they are more requirements.

Day to day patient care looked very much the same. My unit still has some of the same equipment from the past that was used in 2000, and probably predates that era. (The cooling blankets have a cirica - 1980s look to them; they are indestructable and still in use today.)

By 2000 the strict visitor policy was starting to loosen up. We weren't yet in open visitation, but things were headed that way..

I was going to say I don't notice a change in respect, but now that I think about it, nurses are more involved in patient rounds and our input is more sought out by the residents. I suspect the residents reflect the attitudes of their attendings. Many of the newer attendings are from a younger generating and most are women, and I find a less authortarian attitude. Not that that the hierarchy is gone, but things have changed from when the nurse was expected to give up her chair so the doctor could sit down.

[panurse9999]

Paper documentation by exception on paper folding flow sheets. A nurse could spend 7 to 7.5 hrs with patients, not clicking endless boxes on computers for hours on end. LTC was LTC, we did not have short term stay patients from hospitals coming into the home with all types of lines and devices. Foley catheters were allowed, and so were side rails. People came to stay and did not go home. A nurse was hired for a unit, and there was not too much in terms of floating...that was not the norm. Also you did not not see full time per diems, which became the norm around 2006. Doctors would treat the patient as needed by appropriate medical standards. Today its a million dollar work up for people with platinum plans and a cough, and greet/ street for welfare patients with chest pain. All in, and I could go on (see my topic, "why Nurses Are Leaving The Bedside In Droves") it used to be about patient wellness, now its about maximizing revenue, and revenue streams. Spread the nurse as thin as possible, mistakes and lawsuits be darned. Nurses never got "cancelled due to census" 20 years ago. You were hired and worked 40. Regardless.

[Oldmahubbard]

Paper charting. Good and bad with that, but 60% illegible.

Quite the mystery aura surrounding psych, that only certain very special people could understand it.

Internet new. You couldn't always just look the nonsense up.

[Davey Do]

I found a drawing from a 2000 journal that sort of exemplifies the chaos of dealing with paperwork when I worked as an outpatient nurse for a community mental health clinic.

And here's one from the next year when I was given my first computer (an HP that had Windows 95) and the amazement I felt over being able to bring the world to me through my dial-up internet service.

[Golden_RN, MSN]

In CA, my pay was about 50% of what nurses make today. All charting was done on paper. Labs auto-printed each morning on the unit printer. We wore huge pager-like devices that told us where call lights were alarming. Nurses did not have any other wearable device for communication,so when a nurse got a phone call or was needed, coworkers had to walk up & down the hall and yell for them. This was before the ratio law in CA, so on med-surg type of unit an RN and CNA had around 6-8 patients. LVNs commonly worked in acute care then too (they have since been phased out in CA). In acute care we left some of the chart in the patient room (care plans, CNA charting, some assessment charting)! At that time I found that nurse-to-nurse relationships were usually good. I felt supported when I had to float to unfamiliar units and had the support of good CNAs. Most of the time I did not feel respected by MDs in acute care. Several times in that time period I saw nurses humiliated by MDs at the nursing station. I also worked LTC and the nurse/physician relationship was better in that environment (in my experience).

[Golden_RN, MSN]

I came back to mention Y2K. Even though no charting was electronic at the place I worked at that time, no one knew how Y2K would affect power, phones, etc. so I remember administration coming in to the facility for new years eve to monitor the situation which turned out to be absolutely nothing. LOL

[Dragonnurse1, ASN, RN]

I was working nights in an ER during that time (93/03). We did paper charting, pyxis for meds, phone orders from physicians and the other usual things. I was sent to Atlanta for the first Chest Pain clinic, I was selected to do WMD training, was sent for burn training and helped to set up pathways for certain presentations by patients. All the Docs on nights loved to see our shift come through the door, one doc called us the A-Team.

I never noticed any disrespect from the Docs that worked the ER and only had 2 Doctors and 1 Resident give me trouble. I could put a chart down in front of the Doc and "tell" him, "I am starting/doing 'x, y, z'" and he would just sign off. If the patient was going to need narcotics I would let them know so they could come on in the room. We also saved a couple of Doctors butts by catching their mistakes. One was a 67 yo female 2 days with chest pain- Doc said women cannot have MI's, one was a burn patient I started a 22 across the arch of her foot while the Anesthesiologist could not get a line, and the resident's screw up involved snake antivenin.

And on NYE '99 everyone in the ER was huddled around the computer wondering if it was going to die or explode, I was just laughing my you-know-what off. I worked in computers before nursing.