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

Nurses General Nursing

Published

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 Med/Surg.
Some of your co-workers weren't born yet when you became a nurse.

You remember when there was no such thing as outpatient or day surgery.

You remember when gallbladder surgery meant an NG tube and a long painful incision; your patients hated you because you made them cough and deep breathe.

You've seen a CVP done with a water manometer.

You've burned your fingers and strained your eyes testing for sugar and ketones in the urine.

You've used those results to give sliding scale insulin.

You had a little plastic cap case to carry your cap to clinicals because you didn't dare wear it outside of the hospital.

You routinely cut needles off used syringes.

You did most things without wearing gloves.

You've seen a woman labor under "twilight sleep."

It was a normal thing when patients smoked in their rooms.

You've treated ulcers with "sippy diets."

How do you burn yourself testing for ketones in urine?!?!?!?!?! yes i'm a younger student.....

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
How do you burn yourself testing for ketones in urine?!?!?!?!?! yes i'm a younger student.....

You burned yourself testing for glucose. You put urine in a glass test tube and dropped a tablet in. It fizzed and changed colors, getting very hot in the process.

You strained your eyes testing for ketones; you put the little white tablet on a piece of paper towel or tissue, dropped the unine on it, and looked to see if it turned a nice lavender!

I think I remember those right!

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

No gloves because it would cause a patient to have a poor body image if you wore them to clean them up.

We must have had the same nursing school instructors! I remember that well. If you wear gloves, the patients will think that you think they're "dirty." :smilecoffeecup:

We must have had the same nursing school instructors! I remember that well. If you wear gloves, the patients will think that you think they're "dirty." :smilecoffeecup:

Turns out, they are dirty, lol.

Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
You burned yourself testing for glucose. You put urine in a glass test tube and dropped a tablet in. It fizzed and changed colors, getting very hot in the process.

Yes, I remember all of these things! Believe it or not a doctor ordered this on a patient a year or so ago. AC and HS with SSI. I don't remember now what the urine glocose test was called?

I remember around 1975 the newest technology, a fetal monitor.

Patients name and their doctor was posted on the outside of their door.

The glass IV bottles were flat on the top. The pt would go to the BR, put the bottle upside on the floor, then you had a bottle full of blood!

How many bottles crashed to the floor and shattered all over the place!

No IV pumps, only roller-clamps, confused pt's would play with the clamp.

Hang a 1000cc bottle and check back in 30 minutes and bottle almost empty.

Report included LTC.

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

Thanks guys for reminding me that I'm old :(

I do remember working nights in this nursing home as a CNA, the two of us sitting at the nursing station blowing smoke as a patient stood there with a question... we thought nothing of it!

And the caps, they were on the way "out", but I was so proud to have earned mine I wore it anyway, for a time...

Specializes in PICU, Nurse Educator, Clinical Research.
Anyone remember using Mylanta or Maloxx to "paint" the skin of a person with an adhesive allergy, so as to be able to use the offending adhesive on the allergic pt without getting a reaction?

whoa! Does the maalox/tape allergy thing work? I only ask because I've been stuck with no paper tape in the house and needed to use some plastic tape on myself. I have a horrid rash after (small town, no 24 hour stores).

These are fascinating, btw! I often heard seasoned nurses on the floor refer to some of these things and had no idea what they were talking about- and it took me six months as a CNA to figure out what the bedpan hopper was (not in use, obviously, but still in every soiled linen room in the hospital).:idea:

Specializes in Critical Care,Recovery, ED.

There weren't codes as cpr hadn't been approved yet.

Hoppers for the bed pans.

Resharpening hypodermic needles.

Taking a blood pressure was the MDs responsibility not the nurses (forget about any type of physical assessment).

Weeks on end in traction for limb fractures.

Gloves re sterilezed for multiple uses.

whoa! Does the maalox/tape allergy thing work? I only ask because I've been stuck with no paper tape in the house and needed to use some plastic tape on myself. I have a horrid rash after (small town, no 24 hour stores).

These are fascinating, btw! I often heard seasoned nurses on the floor refer to some of these things and had no idea what they were talking about- and it took me six months as a CNA to figure out what the bedpan hopper was (not in use, obviously, but still in every soiled linen room in the hospital).:idea:

Yes, the Mylanta/Maalox thing works pretty well. When I worked hospice, we had a few pt's who reacted to the adhesive on fentanyl patches. With these pts, we'd use Mylanta to lightly coat the skin, let it dry, then apply the patches. This also works to sooth pt's skin that is excoriated around a G-tube site. I've worked in a few jobs where the nurses had lots of autonomy. With the way everything is all policy and procedure now, any nurse using these tricks nowadays would probably get in trouble.:uhoh3:

There weren't codes as cpr hadn't been approved yet.

Hoppers for the bed pans.

Resharpening hypodermic needles.

Taking a blood pressure was the MDs responsibility not the nurses (forget about any type of physical assessment).

Weeks on end in traction for limb fractures.

Gloves re sterilezed for multiple uses.

In the days when docs had to do BPs and assessments, were the docs around a lot more? I rarely ever see a doc in my area of nursing.

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.

Stryker frames! Does anyone else remember Stryker frames? I had a fall a few years ago and refused to let anyone move me without a c-collar and logrolling. I told people later that I lay there and all I could think of was being on a Stryker frame. Everyone looked at me like I was nuts. Totally clueless to what I was talking about!

I don't go back this far myself, but I had a nursing professor who talked about "cooking" morphine tablets with water in a spoon and drawing it up for injection.

....I don't go back this far myself, but I had a nursing professor who talked about "cooking" morphine tablets with water in a spoon and drawing it up for injection.

I saw some nurses' morphine cooking apparatises (sp) in a nursing museum. It's weird that nurses used to cook MSO4 in a spoon over a flame then draw it into a syringe- the same way drug addicts do it!

+ Add a Comment