You Know You're an Old(er) Nurse If . . .

Nurses General Nursing

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You know you're an older nurse if:

1. You remember working with nurses who wore caps. :nurse:

2. You remember nurses (and doctors) sitting at the nurses station drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while charting. :smokin:

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:

Specializes in Peds/adolescence; ortho; med-surg; LTC.

WOW! How about packing a leg continually with ice for 24 hours to prepare for an amputation?

Specializes in Peds/adolescence; ortho; med-surg; LTC.

Nurse Nancy with the real bandaids that came with the book!

Specializes in Peds/adolescence; ortho; med-surg; LTC.

I remember loving playing with those beads whenever a glass thermometer broke! Doesn't take much to amuse a nurse! LOL

Specializes in Peds/adolescence; ortho; med-surg; LTC.

$1.85 an hour until becoming a union member, then $2.10. And that was high, because we nursing students were called techs, not aides!

Specializes in TRAUMA,TRANSPLANT,CARDIOTHORACIC.

hELLO DUTCHGIRLRN...love the women's health history trip,or is it herstory?Lysol,wow..I don't like it diluted and on the floor,nevr mind anywhere else..the old ads are great,I dabble in antiques and collectibles and have come across many old mags and pamphlets directed towards women and their predetermined role in society. one little book I sold ave tips on how to pleae your man(1947),hair all done up before he comes home,dinner ready and his favorite cocktail chilled,June Cleaver to the max.....being the oldest of 3,I was always selected to go get milk or bread at the local market,I WAS ABOUT 8-10..we didn;t worry about strangers in those days,although we were warned..anyway..occassionally ahd to pick up that big lavender box with the flowers on it...i was,never knew what the hell it was..always the same time the bathroom smelled funny for a week...we guys in the neighborhood would later put our heads together and come up with all kinds theories as to what was happening to our moms...none of them close...I remember CATHY RIGBY,the tiny olympic gymnast jumping up and down on a trampoline on TV,as one of the first Tampon ads by a celeb...pretty controversial at the time...duh,, I never got the jumping thing,til later..(won;t fall out)..she made a lot of money with that add,did some broadway later as Peter Pan,married a Doctor(real treat)..being a history nut and justa aplain nut as well..I remember reading how the women folk were allowed to live aboard some of the British warships,many having lied they were married to the men..and there "personal" laundry was hung on the shipps rigging to dry...stains and all.. went to Catholic nursing school after a long hitch in the Navy...femimine hygiene wasn't covered...in that great detail..there was 4 guys in my class....let me tell ya,the beach whistle hi the fan when got on the floors for clinical and had to wash up menstruating women(terrible term I know)...the Navy taught me not to panic...but we all lost it...we all found friends among the female students we could take aside and make sure we were doing everything alright...the older nurse thread is great,sorry to get off tangent here...even with all the computers and new monitors and cameras,etc,we still as nurses are in there talking,touching and holding the patients...the docs from what I see are getting farther and father away from them...rolling rounds with a portabel c.o.w. (COMPUTER ON WHEELS),rarely entering the patients rooms..asking the nurse what their lungs sound like(I tell them go find out for your self,I did),NP'S are doing so much more of the work..too many new ones now though..so lacking the expertise we would get from the docs..at my place the RN/NP relationship is a tad strained,they have more initials after their name I make $20,000-30,000 more than they do....I tell the new nurses to take every advantage to eyeball yor pateint regularly...if you don;t see the problem you can't it...all the monitors in the world aren;t going to see that left foot getting cold and light blue unless it's uncovered and touched...the reddened coccyx..abd distension hides well under 3 blankets..I ask he cna's to keep the patients trays in the room after eating so I'll really know what they're intake is,,although I help feed my patients almost all the time..great time for small talk,anything new hurting them..howz the pain meds working,even get em to cough up some old meidcal history that can help..80% of my pateints are vented and medicated..so I don;t always have the chance..thnigs are looking up...no more opening he belly to check for a bleed...no more rotating bp cuffs...ice water lavages are gone..leeches are back...pain med and sedatives can be fine tuned much better,,veryfew IM injections...respiratory infections are still rampant but not quite as fatal...head injuries are not the DOA's they used to be,and AAA'S are off the vent in a week,versus down to the morgue in a shift...Radical necks can now go back out in public instead of hiding due to terrible scarriing and the use of voice boxes..CABG patients can be home in less than 2 weeks,back to grilled cheese sandwhiches and marlboro's......I love the evolution of nursing,I started in the 80's,still regale in my grandmother's stories of the 40's...well enuf rambling...gotta get cooking for Xmas EVE..still home recovering from back surgey..back to the ICU soon,my wife the RN is working OT today..and she can;t cook anyway....God bless...

Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
Nurse Nancy with the real bandaids that came with the book!

Don't forget Doctor Dan, he had real bandaids in his book too! I have a copy of both Nancy Nurse and Doctor Dan. The mother says "big boys don't cry when they get hurt". He was playing with toy guns!

Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
hELLO DUTCHGIRLRN...love the women's health history trip,or is it her story?Lysol,wow..I don't like it diluted and on the floor,nevr mind anywhere else..the old ads are great,I remember CATHY RIGBY,the tiny olympic gymnast jumping up and down on a trampoline on TV,as one of the first Tampon ads by a celeb...pretty controversial at the time...duh...

Wow a guy nurse my age. Pretty fabulous there guy! I remember the Cathy Rigby commercial and wow yes it was controversial! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas and recover soon from your surgery. Duchy

Specializes in Peds, GI, Home Health, Risk Mgmt.

Dear nursing compatriots,

I didn't envision that we would have such a delightful trip down memory lane when I started this thread, but so we have.

And for you younger ones (who are probably thinking, "Good grief, how antiquated! Thank goodness I didn't have to deal with that!"), just a reminder that time passes quickly, and soon enough you'll be able to take your own trip down memory lane. . . .

The most efficacious changes impacting nursing care I've seen include:

1. The pulse oximeter

I worked NICU initially where we used transcutaneous O2 monitoring with a device that heated the skin, allowing the O2 escaping from the heated, dilated capillary bed under the skin to be measured. And the kids had little red circles on their abdomens from the heat, you had to reposition the probe every 2 hrs, and recalibrate it periodically, calling the lab to get the current barometric pressure reading.

2. Improved IV access

IV access is the rule today, rather than the exception. In earlier times, patients got poked a lot more (IM shots, lab draws). As a peds nurse, IV access was frequently a problem. Thanks goodness for PICC lines and CVL catheters!

3. Improved pain control

The attitudes and treatment options for pain control are a vast improvement over what we used to do--now we have IV PCAs, duragesic patches, epidural pumps, around-the-clock dosing.

4. Home ventilator use

Before kids could be sent home on ventilators they (and their families) just lived at the hospital. I remember caring for one of the first kids to go home in the city I lived in, and then seeing him again at age 15 as a patient at the local children's hospital. (He'd managed to outgrow the need for the vent but still had significant lung disease).

Happy holidays to you all. :Santa2:

HollyVK :Holly2:

(1.5 yrs away from my 30th nursing school reunion) :gandalf:

You know you're an older nurse if:

1. You remember working with nurses who wore caps. :nurse:

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..

Happy holidays to you all. :Santa2:

HollyVK :Holly2:

(1.5 yrs away from my 30th nursing school reunion) :gandalf:

Holly, thanks for the thread, it is neat!

Specializes in disability.

God I am still using wind up cranks on the bed to lift up the pts head some things dont change at lest not quickly

Ya'all are scaring me! = I remember all of this. I think I still have a nursing cap up in the closet somewhere. Remember when DRG's came in and everything changed. I blame DRG's for the nursing shortage now -

shakey times = and how did the insurance companies get all of the power? Use to, the Dr. said when a patient was ready to come and go - now its only if the insurace will okay it - and it's out you go! AH = the good ole days.

Fellow nurses give you a bottle of fake Viagra for Christmas.

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