1. You remember working with nurses who wore caps.
2. You remember nurses (and doctors) sitting at the nurses station drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while charting.
3. You remember when charting was done (handwritten) in 3 different colors (black or blue for day shift, green for evening shifts, red for night shift).
4. You remember when IV fluids came only in glass bottles.
5. You remember when breast milk wasn't a biohazard. :redlight:
6. You remember when chest tube setups consisted of glass bottles, rubber stoppers, and tubing.
7. You remember when white polyester uniforms were the standard for nurses.
8. You remember when you'd have given your eye teeth for a comfortable pair of nursing shoes (we haven't always been able to wear athletic shoes).
9. You remember when the hospital's top nurse was the director of nursing and not the chief nursing officer.
10. You remember giving lots of IM shots for pre-ops and pain meds.
What else?
HollyVK (with patient care experience going back to 1972) :gandalf:
*Remember colored uniforms at some hosps., denoting position? White for RN, light blue for CNA, yellow for housekeeping.
*After giving an IM, you'd poke it into the mattress for a minute til you were ready to recap it.
*Hyperemesis being treated with Thorazine drips to "snow" the Mom a few days til she was better.
*4 people to a room, and one bathroom! Or it was down the hall....ick.
*The old ancient fetal stethesope...like a band on the forehead with a hard straight tube and trumpet-shaped bell. The Dr. put it on, then stuck his forehead on the pregnant woman's abdomen. Hard to look dignified!:chuckle
*If a pt. was in isolation, we'd just wear a pt. gown backwards.
*The "astronaut" garb we had to wear for AIDS pts. followed by wshing your hands in dilute bleach after de-gowning!
*The nice heavy weight of a glass syringe and metal tubex as you threw it like a dart into a hip. I hated the lightweight carpujects and had to relearn how to spear it into someone.
**Navy blue Nurses' capes....my Mom had one! You saved for months to afford one then...the Depression.
This thread is a gas! :roll
Okay, this may make me sound very old-fashioned, but when I graduate from nursing school I am gonna get one of those navy blue nursing capes with the red lining!
My Great-Aunt still has hers and she says I can have it. My mother can sew so she says she will sew me up a nice wool one with gold buttons or REAL Ivory buttons!!!!!. I think I will look rather 'kewl' in winter time!
treatment for bedsores consisted using a heat lamp, and betadine ointment.
Interesting! We used Milk of Magnesia and a heat lamp---and it WORKED!!!!
Pay was $7/hr as a graduate PN in LTC; when I got my license, it increased to $7.25/hr---pretty decent money 21 years ago and I was pleased to get it!; I make about 3x that now.
Bythe way, I really LIKED wearing the nurse's cap back then!
And I LOVED wearing my cap. I don't miss knocking it askew w/bed curtains, IV tubing, etc., or roasting it under an open warmer, but I really liked it. Oh, well, time marches on.... I had a cape, too. Navy w/gray lining. Very warm.
Hi zoeboboey yes it is what you think & thankfully I didnt have to do it. After the taste test it was small tablets a dramatic improvement, this info I recieved from my lecturer. Sometimes I do feel 87 years old tho lol :nuke: ouch:nuke:
Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
Hi zoeboboey yes it is what you think & thankfully I didnt have to do it. After the taste test it was small tablets a dramatic improvement, this info I recieved from my lecturer. Sometimes I do feel 87 years old tho lol :nuke: ouch:nuke:
Speaking of lecturers - We had an A + P instructor who was telling us about GI bleeds one day. We had two or three guys in that class and she was talking about the odor of old blood - she says, "Well, you GIRLS know what old blood smells like!" I just about DIED!
Not that that has anything to do with anything but ... I was so young and naive... Those days were kinda fun. I went to a Catholic nursing school and was one of the fortunate ones who didn't live in the "dorm" (dorm mothers and all...). I say fortunate because I had a lot more leeway. But at the same time, the "girls" had such a camaraderie that those of us who lived off-campus would never have ... I envied them some.
Sooo, let's hear some reminiscing about DORM LIVING! All the secrets I never knew LOL
sunnyjohn
2,450 Posts
Okay, this may make me sound very old-fashioned, but when I graduate from nursing school I am gonna get one of those navy blue nursing capes with the red lining!
My Great-Aunt still has hers and she says I can have it. My mother can sew so she says she will sew me up a nice wool one with gold buttons or REAL Ivory buttons!!!!!. I think I will look rather 'kewl' in winter time!