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 Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
The Stryker frame I remember must have been even older than the one in the picture. It was red-painted metal and didn't have the big wheel thing for turning. The best I can remember, it had handles.

Did you look at the link I posted for the photo on ebay? that one was from 1950s and was made of canvas.

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

You know you're an older nurse if you now have a job where you are no longer an "essential service worker"--meaning you'd better be finding a way to haul yourself down to the hospital during adverse weather events.

Here in Denver we had a blizzard last week, and now a heavy snowstorm that started yesterday and will run through the weekend.

When we had a blizzard here in 1982 and I was a young nurse working NICU, I wasn't able to get in for my 8 hr night shift on Xmas eve, but was picked up by a volunteer in a 4-wheel drive with chains on all 4 wheels the next morning and taken to the hospital, where I worked 2 8-hr shifts, relieving the day shift nurses from the previous day who had to work 24 hrs as no one was able to get in to relieve them.

Last Saturday I attended the big local ballet event and sat next to a nurse manager from the last hospital I'd work at and her radiology dept-employed physician husband. She shared that both of them had spent 2 days at the hospital during the blizzard. I shared with her that my office closed at 10am on the morning of the blizzard and was also closed the next day.

As I sit here warm and snug at home (my office closed due to snow yesterday afternoon, is still closed today), I think of all my younger cohorts who are shoveling out their vehicles so they can make the treacherous drive to get to the hospital. It's an experience I don't miss at all . . . .

HollyVK (working smarter, not harder, in her advancing years):monkeydance:

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
As I sit here warm and snug at home (my office closed due to snow yesterday afternoon, is still closed today), I think of all my younger cohorts who are shoveling out their vehicles so they can make the treacherous drive to get to the hospital. It's an experience I don't miss at all . . . .

HollyVK (working smarter, not harder, in her advancing years):monkeydance:

Ha ha, Holly, I wonder how many younger (and older) nurses are snarling as they read about your "warm and snug" LOL!

I have "retired" for a time but I do miss all that - the good and the bad. The administrator of one place was the 4 wheel driver one year, and that was pretty cool to me ...

What are you doing for work that your office was closed?

Specializes in Peds, GI, Home Health, Risk Mgmt.
Ha ha, Holly, I wonder how many younger (and older) nurses are snarling as they read about your "warm and snug" LOL!

I have "retired" for a time but I do miss all that - the good and the bad. The administrator of one place was the 4 wheel driver one year, and that was pretty cool to me ...

What are you doing for work that your office was closed?

I'm taking vacation time, catching up on my email, reading for fun, and listening to NPR. If I'd been more motivated I could have taken a laptop home with me to do some work.

And I'm quite sure that the weather here is nothing compared with your winters up in ME. :bow: :Snow:

HollyVK :Snowman1:

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
I'm taking vacation time, catching up on my email, reading for fun, and listening to NPR. If I'd been more motivated I could have taken a laptop home with me to do some work.

And I'm quite sure that the weather here is nothing compared with your winters up in ME. :bow: :Snow:

HollyVK :Snowman1:

Sounds like much NEEDED vaca time... good for you!

You know what? We have had only 3 snowfalls - 2 of them were less than 1/2 hr of very light snow, one culminated in about 3 inches of real snow which stayed on the ground for about 3 days, so - you guys are getting it TONS worse.

This is very unusual for Maine - I am afraid that we will get DUMPED on in April - which does happen sometimes!

Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

Rubber sheet covered with drawsheet along with cotton cloth adult diapers for incontient pateints and loosing your last diaper pin under the bed....

Ice packs made from ice cubes from your ice box wrapped in rubber gloves or sheet....thought I went to heaven when they came out with little motor you attached cooling blanket tubing then place in metal trash can and dump ice over to cool down patient. By 1984 pumps shear worn out and spent so much wasted time trying to rig pieces from three units together....complined to right Nun one night. Three months later got new automated heating/cooling blankets, new IV poles hung on ceiling (could never find poles) and infusion pump for every bed.

Instead of bird respirators (small green box vents RT pieced together), got new vents size large file cabinet and blocked patient access. When I left respiratory/telemetry, vents fit on top of nightstands.

Blakemore tubes tied to football helmets for espohageal varicies + GI tamponade bleed...

Pic: Log In Problems

Procedure: Sengstaken-Blakemore Tube

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
Did you look at the link I posted for the photo on ebay? that one was from 1950s and was made of canvas.

I just looked at the one you posted, and that was a lot closer to what I remember, and the one I remember was made of canvas. I wouldn't pay what they're asking for the picture though.

The patients on the Stryker frame could watch TV; they had these special little prism glasses for that.

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
The patients on the Stryker frame could watch TV; they had these special little prism glasses for that.

Ah yes, the prism glasses ... wouldn't those people be blown away by digital cable LOL

Paper req's for lab and xrays, when you had to keep the pink copy in the cahrt and they all fell our when it got too full....

Charts were thin metal boards you pushed to open and close, no spiral holes to keep stuff in, because there just wansn't that much paperwork to go in them!

Nursing assistants who did vitals, passed water, did am and hs care and didn't give you any lip about doing their job!!!

Assistive personnel and ancillary departments were responsible for their own errors and NOT THE NURSE!

Specializes in cardiac med-surg.

your varicose veins have varicose veins

Specializes in NICU, ER, OR.

Ok, pardon my ignorance... the Stryker frame...... what was that used for??!!! I really dont know......

thanks

Specializes in Alzheimer's, Geriatrics, Chem. Dep..
Ok, pardon my ignorance... the Stryker frame...... what was that used for??!!! I really dont know......

thanks

It was used to actually "flip" patients over who had back injuries etc. That way there was (supposedly) less risk of injury, better healing. You can compare it to flipping a pancake.

Did anyone see the movie "The Other Side of the Mountain" about Jill Kinmont (skiier)? Jill is in a stryker frame at one point, I believe.

The Other Side of the Mountain (1975)

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