·
Some of my memories are vague but the feelings
surrounding the next memory are as vivid today as they were in 1963. I remember getting on the elevator and
squeezing as far back into the corner as I possibly could. I was holding a package that was quite heavy
and looked exactly like a nice fat, rolled piece of roasting beef. Other people got on the elevator and I
averted my eyes and tried to look nonchalant.
I wanted to say, “no, I can’t do that” but how could I refuse to do one
of the first assignments that I was given as a Student. I was told to bring a freshly amputated leg down
to the morgue. I was sure that everyone I met knew what I had in the package in
my arms.
I remember:
·
Routinely
giving aspirin for temperatures over 101⁰. The connection to Reye’s syndrome hadn’t been
made yet.
·
The kids on Peds would get soaking wet in those clumsy
square oxygen tents.
·
Sitting in a 4 bedded “baby” room during feeding
time. I/We would pick up and feed one
baby and prop up the bottle for the next baby.
In our defense there wasn’t usually enough staff on evening and nights,
the kids needed to be fed and we never left the room while a bottle was
propped.
·
This leads me to the next memory. We would have had loads of people who were
willing and anxious and ready to feed each and every baby in the most loving
manner if we didn’t practice the cruel and inhuman policy of limiting parents’
visiting hours. I can still hear the
wailing and gnashing of teeth and visualize the horrendous scene of parent’s
being pulled away from sick, young children who were screaming at the top of
their lungs for Mommy and Daddy to stay.
I NEVER AGREED with this policy – NEVER -but I was powerless to do
anything about it. It used to break my
heart. What was wrong with “us”? Thank God this practice no longer exists.
·
I remember the new “clean room” on
Pediatrics. I believe Dr. Vincent
Fontana was instrumental in getting this up and running. (He was also a Leader in the Field of Child Neglect
and Abuse Prevention) You needed to don
all kinds of gear including foot covering before you entered this chamber. When you walked through the ante-room you
were practically blown away by the vacuum jets.
I felt as it I was on a mission to Mars (similar to being in an episode
of Star Wars) on those occasions when I was assigned to that room. I must say it was a bit of a pain in the neck
to get in and out of that place. Do any
of my classmates have more details about this special environment for kids with
severe allergies and asthma? Whatever
happened to this concept? Was it proven
to help or did it go the way of aspirin for temps over 101⁰?
·
I remember attending a little “party” in the
playroom area in the middle of Pediatrics. Dr. Vincent Fontana was in
attendance, accompanied by the “heavyset” nun (am I allowed to say that?) who
was the Pediatric Supervisor at the time. Dr. Fontana approached me and said something
like, “Hello, there, I don’t believe we ever met?” I had worked on Pediatrics for near close to
a year at that point ( It was the year after graduation so it really doesn’t
fit in the category of Memories of a Student Nurse but since we are on the
topic of Dr. Fontana I decided I’d throw it in). I was more than a little bit insulted that he
didn’t know that I was one of the nurses on the Unit and I responded, “Maybe it’s
because I recently dyed my hair blonde. But I recognize you because your hair
is the same color it has been for the last few months”. The staff within hearing range couldn’t
believe their ears. How could I say
such a thing to this big Specialist’s face?
I guess it was because I was now wearing white and was starting to get
tired of the philosophy that the doctor was a supreme being and I was an
ignorant peon. This was a time when
nurses stood at attention and offered their seats to any doctor entering the
room. Even, I might add, after being
tattered and frayed after running ragged all night with the humanly impossible
task of giving care to a ward of 40 very ill patients.
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