Any Nurses who trained in 1989 or before......I have a question for you..

[recall]

When you washed/helped to wash someone, did you wear gloves ?

I just happened to get some poo on my hand ( don't ask ) and I washed it off, but I couldn't get rid of the smell. I said to my friend "This takes me back, we used to use washing powder to get rid of the smell, Melena was the worse " She looked at me horrified. Was it just me should I have been wearing gloves ????? I remember wearing them when I was being assessed administering an enema, so I think we used to wear them for procedures, and blood stuff, but not for poo or sick etc.

Please put my mind at rest, I feel all wrong now

Very unprofessional......I know

Recall that's hilarious.

As a 3rd yr student nurse my friend was demonstrating to a 1st yr how to insert a suppository in a patient...it was only afterwards that she realised that she had forgotton to wear gloves! When we were in Oz working she discharged a patient, then cleaned his bed and locker with what she thought was cleaning fluid but was actually someones 24 hr urine collection!

Life as a London based student nurse in the early 80's was great fun. Work on the wards was hard. I too liked the Kardex but found as I was completing my training the nursing care plan rather laborious and repetitive. Time could have been spent caring for the patient although I suppose we did do it during their 'rest' time.

I feel rather sad that if I wanted to return to nursing I wouldn't be able to as I don't have a degree in it although I have spent 17 years as a 'peadiatric' nurse to my 3 dc! I used to teach and mentor 'back to nursing' nurses before I left. Such a waste of a qualification.

Something I don't understand is why are patients thought to be 'sicker' nowadays? They were pretty sick 30 odd years ago as well.

pippi I KNEW you were a Guys girl when you mentioned those bloody "strings" and the hats!

January '80.....gowan we'll find out we "know" each other

I was on orthopaedics and the "Stryker" frame, revolutionised nursing back and surgery. I was one of the few trained to turn it, I liked scaring the sh*ite out of students as they "had a go" to show them what it was like for the poor patient!

Hunts House, wooden death-trap now gone.

Astley Cooper the dreaded ward, lovely renal patients but SO SO heavy & busy, every time the ward lists came out we lived in dread of seeing our name next to it.

The lovely porters- real sarf London boys (misogony ruled) if you kept on the right side of them (& I did ) they'd get you ANYTHING you were short of.

"Leave it with me Staff/Sister" tapping the side of their nose.

I might out myself here, I trained at Guys (march 87 set) I was at Guys 2 days ago having not been there for years! The bridge walk way from London Bridge has gone, it's now an escalator, Hunts House has been knocked down and is now a library and medical school. The old Henrietta Raphael Nurses Home is now part of the medical school/ offices. Did any of you who trained at Guys remember the medical museum? Bottles of weird anatomy and phenomena. Does anyone remember The Hop (that's where I met dh!) and Inflam in the student bar?! Those were the days when I could stay up all night and work the next day

Yes, yes! There was a ghostly sister who walked the wards of Hunts House but could only be seen from just below the knees upwards because the floors had been raised at some point after she died. I started in Aug 1984. Remember doing Samaritan in the 2nd year eith the sour faced Sister Duncan. Prof McColl (now Lord McColl of Dulwich, I believe) who everyone revered but who had a Likes and Dislikes list in theatre as long as your arm and woe betide any poor ODA who got it wrong, for all his charm, he could be obnoxious in theatre! Henrietta Raphael had tiny rooms, everyone wants the bigger rooms in Nuffield (reserved for the girls living further from home). Miss Farr, the Surgical Nursing Officer, who was scary but actually really nice. The South African librarian with the loooongest facial hair! I recall the inflams were slightly more debauched and drunken than the hops. Tony Gardner was a medical student (now a star of mynparsnts are aliens). The museum was the Gordon Museum. Does anyone remember the two witchy midwives who terrorised the antinatal clinic (who called my tall friend 'lamp post' - witches) and the brilliant midwifery sister, Peggy, an ex nun from Holy Island who swore lke a trooper and once insisted on taking my flatmate and me home with her one night when there was a train strike, with hospital nightdresses and toothbrushes. I could go on, brilliant nostalgic memories. Work as a manager in mental health now - such different times!

Remember spending one drunken night practicing cannulation on a couple of medical students ( we just sauntered into A&E and they gave them to us, no questions!) and then going to work on an early without any sleep and still not sober - scary stuff on reflection!

I'll always have a special memory for Guys. Had DD1 there on Naaman ward which was my 1st ward as a student (male urology then, post-natal later). Was really run down as all maternity services were about to move to Tommys (a completely different Trust in the 80s, always a bit snobbier than Guys!)

Good old Prof McColl, I remember watching him operate and he chatted to me the whole way through...all the med students and Drs and little ol' me was the one he was chatting to! I remember my first night duty on William Gull ward, it was so exciting, I'd never stayed up all night before! That was the ward that I looked after Frank Brunos uncle...when Frank visited I nearly fainted I was so star struck! My fave wards were Sarah and Evelyn though. Those were good old days where we wore a proper uniform and looked smart.... My current scrubs are comfortable but I feel scruffy and the patients don't identify us as well.

sigh blast from the past there girls!
You might have been students on my wards. You tended to bump into the same staff didn't you on rotation I have fond memories of night duties on Patience (Pat & Sam!) Queen & Christopher.

Getting the giggles doing the 6am drug round in Franglais, trying to pre-op bowel prep a patient without him being embarrassed at being starkers on a hoist, smuggling spare blankets out of the linen room for the porter to swap for extra goodies on another ward, an internal black market when the stores were running low. For some reason it was always famine or feast with the blankets!

Prof McColl, brilliant surgeon but Had His Ways, yes I remember the lists!
Mr Cleverly, Senior Night NO was the scourge of all students on nights.
Miss Farr was my heroine, gave me my first SN job!
Sister Hanrahan (Mary Ward) could be a right tartar but boy you learnt stuff!

She'd quiz you over the supper trolley. There was a fire on her ward when I was in charge as a new SN -she was lovely to me afterwards.

Sister Karani ditto -what she didn't know about cardiac nursing wasn't worth knowing.

Ah Beverly Cleverly - forgot about him with his blazer and blonde quiff!

I as going to put Beverly Cleverly but thought he might have left by the time you started! :D

I once was trying to stop a post-op patient on Chris getting out of bed, he was going bonkers from the anaesthetic as they did sometimes. This old boy ripped out all his lines/drains & was hobbling away down the ward at speed, I tried to stop him & slipped, we both ended up on the floor, the whole ward was awake, the men all "encouraging me" ....in walks Beverley.
"When you've QUITE finished Staff we'll do a round" gulp
He made me report on all the patients then looked me up & down and told me to go and change my bloodied uniform.While he covered the ward, I legged it & returned to find him blazer off, helping the (terrified) student lift a patient up the bed!!

Martha / Sarah with the super efficient Sister Purkiss. Don't remember Mary ward Bossy ( or sisters hanrahan or karani). I did ENT (evelyn) and A&E as a staff nurse. Also worked a lot on Braxton Hicks and in Recovery for a while. It's changed beyond recognition now. Remember the Nurse Tutors- Neil Thistleton, Brenda woolfenden, teresa comba and mr sooberoo (??). Going to Southwark Cathdral in full uniform on Christmas Eve to sing midnight mass, jumpers for goalposts ..... Ahh the memories!

You are right, Beverly wasn't around for long after I started!

Going off to the pub in Borough Market (before it became trendy), in the morning after your last night. That whole area was just plain creepy then, I always imagined it was full of porn studios!

Awwwwwwww this thread almost makes me want to be a nurse, you all have such interesting memories and are a part of history, my mum is a nurse though and I know in RL I could not cope with the stress of it. Well done on a good job ladies!

I was walking from mile end to whitechapel after a busy long night on a care of the elderly ward. I was 18 and got flashed at I turned to the flasher and said "i wouldn't bother I've been looking at them all night" he did up his coat and walked away. The joys of being a nurse.

Anyone from the Royal Free?

What an amazing thread is! My late mother always wanted to be a nurse. She had my sister and brother quite young and had just started training when they were about 14 and 15 but then fell pregnant with me, so she was /.

She really wanted me to go into nursing but it wasn't for me. She died four years ago, just before her oldest granddaughter qualified. She would have been so proud.

My grandma worked as Head Housekeeper in a nurses home in Newcastle. She worked there for decades and adored her job. Most of her friends were nurses and I was taught how to do hospital corners. I do like a nicely made bed!

2plus!

Ah Pippi I remember Sr Perkiss, she was lovely! We used to go to The Market Porter sometimes after nights, I had my 21st in The Horseshoe...ah the good ol' days!

Think the pub in the Market was "the Southwark Tavern", I recall having spent many a night in The Horseshoe but can't think for the life of me where it was! Can you remind me Ulrika?

2plus2 that is so funny!
sauvignonB didn't work at the Royal Free but one of my neighbours used to be the nurses home warden at the Royal Free annexe in Islington, which is now flats. She had some brilliant stories to tell

Started my training in 1981.

Anyone remember the five day bowel prep? And the patient would spend the five days in a hospital bed.

Patients who had had hernia ops in for 5 days afterwards. They are done as a day case now. That is why patients are more poorly now. No convalescent patients. As soon as they can eat/drink/walk to the loo they are shipped off home.

Wore gloves to insert suppostries/give enemas. Washes etc bare hands. Changing colostomy bags - bare hands.

Giving out the porridge when you where a hungover student nurse. Writing the kardex in blue ink, green for nights and red if a DDA (controlled drug) had been given.

Them where the days.

The Cock tavern in smithfield meat market after nights, sat with the butchers in their blood covered clothes, the off duty coppers and the boozers who wanted a drink at 8 am. Happy days
Anyone have the visitors bell which was rung once at 7.25 PM and the twice at 7.30- all the vistors just used to get up and go, none of the stroppy argumentative" I know my rights" crowd that now seem to spend their days lolling about on the beds "visiting"
God I had forgotten the 18in turn down on the sheets and folding the sheets into a "post surgical" bed in a nice parcel which could gently be unfolded over the patient.
This thread had been a lovely trip down memory lane.