In the beginning....

God created Nursee.
This Nursee trained in the land of England - a long time ago and far far away.
This were the dark days of NHS Nightingale wards - 40 beds - gothic Victorian hospitals with polished floors, massive sluices, clanking radiators and antiquated fixtures. We had strict old Ward Sisters who nursed during WW2 and would have put the fear of God into a whole division of SS men. Nursee was a "student" which meant working 40 hours per week doing full patient care and going into school occasionally for 2 weeks. This lasted for 3 years. We did lots of odd things like putting egg white and oxygen on decubitus ulcers. We didnt have any IV pumps or telemetry. We didnt do very much documentation AT ALL. That was excellent. There was none of this nursing process idiocy. We were left in charge on night shift, which consisted of 2 students and an aide on a 34 - 40 bed ward. You had to learn BY HEART all the names, ages, diagnoses and conditions of all your patients for when Night Sister would come to make rounds with you. We worked very hard but had lots of fun. We were extremely naughty. I had a patient whose toes were black and crispy due to lack of circulation - they came off when I did a dressing change so I put them in a nasty doctors white lab coat pocket. We sent new student nurses to OR for a bucket of sterile oxygen. OR staff would send them back saying they had to bring their own bucket. We would send them back with a bucket. They would send them back saying the bucket needed a lid....We could keep this going for ages... We would do test feeds on babies with pyloric stenosis and forget to tell the medical students it wasnt a good idea to sit right in front of the baby being fed.
Nursee graduated and has since been:
Ward Sister in Peds (UK)
Ward sister in M/S (UK)
Head Nurse (Middle East)
Assistant Chief Nurse (Middle East)
Administrator (USA)
Cardiology Practice Administrator (USA)
Home Health Nurse (USA)
Workers Comp Case Manager (USA)
Unit Director M/S (USA)
all of these pretty much sucked.... some more than others
I will be blogging about my new life in the mountains and my new job in a tiny highly dysfunctional rural hospital.... cue duelling banjos.