Oh dear I really have set myself off on a trip down memory lane!! Recently a doctor called me "very old school" I think it was meant as a complement but unsurprisingly I was horrified but to be fair when I look back so many things have changed so.... so you know your old school when you remember......
Metal bed pans that had to be washed in the bedpan washer. Kind nurses used to warm them with hot water as they were freezing cold and would have patients hopping off the bed :)
Female nurses only being allowed to wear dresses and hats. The number of stripes on your hat indicated how long you had been training and when qualified you got a cotton one with lace trim. Evil things they were you used to spend half your life pinning them back as confused patients knocked them off
Unless you were married you had to live in the nurses home whilst training. Lights were meant to be out by 11pm and the house mother used to do spot checks on the rooms to make sure no men were hidden away!!!!:redbeathe Once a month an army bus used to come and pick all the student nurses up and take them back to the barracks were 300 army boys were waiting for a free disco, free food, free drink and far to much free love :)
We were not allowed to tell patients our first name and were called Student Nurse Smith. When a patient died we would dress them in a shroud, put a flower in their folded hands and then they would e wrapped in a sheet. A window would be left open to allow their soul to leave. They would go off to Rose Cottage, never called the mortuary. The nurse in charge would always say "there be 2 more before the week's out" as in those days people only ever died in threes!!!!
The wards were long open plan called Nightingale wards. 15 patients down each side. We had a back trolley and every two hours would work our way up and down the ward turning and cahnging every patient. We used to rub something onto pressure areas but I can't remember what it was. If you had lots of dependent patients then it was like painting the forth bridge - as soon as you had finished it was time to go round again!!! At Christmas a huge tree would be delivered and we would decorate the beds with tinsel - wouldn't be allowed today becuase of infection risks.
Consultant ward rounds were like a royal visit. They occured at the same time on set days. The Consultant would only talk with the Sister and you were expected to have every pt in bed, sheet folded to middle of the chest looking tidy!!!!! Never figured out how to make a pt look tidy.
Getting your silver nurses buckle was like a right of passage. As soon as you got your results from your final exams the whole set headed off to the only jewellers that stocked buckles and chose their badge. I still wear mine but it's fair to say the belt is notably bigger
Male nurses and female doctors were rare. Now in my department we have more male nurses than female definitely a change for the better.
We took temperatures with a glass mercury filled thermometer covered in a disposable plastic cover and BP's were taken with a manual syphg and stethescope.
I am sure there are more but please other old school nurses share your memories with me :)
And we still do postpartum sitz baths....just that they're one per patient and not washed between. :)
I am used to them being called "serial urines". Every time you add a fresh sample, the oldest one gets tossed and you keep on shuffling down the line lol. Here's to old school.
I'm confused...Could you please explain this? Thanks!
If I remember correctly (from back in the murk of my brain) this was to culture anerobic bacteria. The burning candle consumed the O2 in the container.
If I remember correctly (from back in the murk of my brain) this was to culture anerobic bacteria. The burning candle consumed the O2 in the container.
Ahh I see. Very interesting! Glad to see I was partially correct too lol
My mother remembers mixing (really beating) infant formula in a kitchen on the floor (very sterile), boiling equipment for 20 minutes to sterilize (needles, tube, etc.) Iv's not in veins but placed under the skin (like big infiltrates), iron lungs, no air conditioning.
Determining glucose levels by testing the urine. We would put the urine in a test tube then add a pill. Urine would change colour and you would determine glucose level by mathing the colour of the urine to a chart. I remember standing there desperately trying to match the colours up.
Croup tents
Humdified O2.
Huge pillows placed between the legs of pts with hip replacements. Kept their legs spread far apart. You needed 2 nurses to turn because the pillows were so big.
Smoking in the nursing station. Pts smoking in their rooms. I remember one pt was a quad and had some special apparatus to hold his cigarette - as a student I would have to put the cigaette in and light it. The first time I could not get the lighter to light - the next day my two smoking friends spent their break teaching me how to light a lighter!
You lot should come work for the NHS. We still have a lot of the things that you miss. Flat sheets, nurses calculating drugs and mixing iv's, no 24hr pharmacy, 18 bed wards, cardex, no aircon...etc....etc....
Not so much the 18 bed wards but everything else including metal bedpans:eek: and drip rate calculations still happen in both Ireland and in the center of excellence that I now work in in Australia! post op sponge for all major surgeries the first evening if they cannot SOOB and onto a shower chair.
but then on the bright side I work in state(Victoria) with ratios for public hospitals 1 RN for 4 pt
And the banana bag correct me if I am wrong is a bag of NS with Pabarnix 1 & 11 added to it turning it yellow......a Iv infusion given to alcoholics daily for 3 days on admission to the ward to replace vitamins and minerals lost by their poor diet. Combined with up to 40mg librium QID for DTs (this was happening 2 years ago in a hospital in Ireland!!) :)
Smoking in the nursing station. Pts smoking in their rooms. I remember one pt was a quad and had some special apparatus to hold his cigarette - as a student I would have to put the cigaette in and light it. The first time I could not get the lighter to light - the next day my two smoking friends spent their break teaching me how to light a lighter!
That is something I do not miss from the "good old days". I'm a non-smoker but sometimes after a shift, my clothes and hair smelled like I'd been in a singles' bar for eight hours. And that was from the patients who smoked.
Honestly, the staff members I knew who smoked the most were the respiratory therapists! Go figure!
And the banana bag correct me if I am wrong is a bag of NS with Pabarnix 1 & 11 added to it turning it yellow......a Iv infusion given to alcoholics daily for 3 days on admission to the ward to replace vitamins and minerals lost by their poor diet. Combined with up to 40mg librium QID for DTs (this was happening 2 years ago in a hospital in Ireland!!) :)
Thank you so much for explaining the banana bag. I really wondered what that was!
Iv's not in veins but placed under the skin (like big infiltrates).
Clysis.:)
Who remembers nurses wearing starched white dresses with belt at the waist, started high hat, hard Clinic shoes,and the blue & red wool cape? OH, and you never left home without your school pin.
My teacher once told me that back in her day that to test for any UTI's, the nurses would boil the urine, and if it congealed, it meant infection was present ? Yikes.
OH, and you never left home without your school pin.
southern rn
235 Posts
I am used to them being called "serial urines". Every time you add a fresh sample, the oldest one gets tossed and you keep on shuffling down the line lol. Here's to old school.