General Chat

Trained at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol.

Anyone else not trained in London?


Kath

me

I always wanted to be a nurse from when I was a little girl. I was in Singapore with my parents (dad was in the RAF) when I did a week's placement at the BMH hospital aged 15. I had to ask my way to the MD block to assist with a physio group session and got lost. Loads of men were hanging over a ward balcony and shouted at me asking where I was going. I replied 'MD block'. There reply 'sorry love this is the VD block'. I was so naive I didn't know what it meant and had to ask my mum when I got home.

Di

Sorry - me too not trained in London.

I also started training in 1958 but had a 'Big Ben' watch on a chain kept in my pocket. What super memories . How about the damp dusting and making sure the beds were in line with the floor boards?

I specialed a baby with digestive problems on nights, and had to feed him with a dropper every 5 minutes to keep his strength up. We got him better, and I still have his little bath duck which his Mum gave me to remember him by. He would be about 55yrs now. There is so much on here which is reminding me of my youth and how lucky to have a job I enjoyed most of the time.
At my last place, on nights we had no porters, and when a patient died we had to take her on a trolley to the mortuary which was in the garden. Luckily it was very cold as we were unable to fit this large person into the fridge and had to leave the trolley beside it instead. We were having hysterics by the time we got back to the ward. Weird sense of humour nurses have! Jean

Where would we have been without the weird humour - it got us through many a difficult day.
Some of the memories that this thread is triggering are probably best not put on the boards - maybe we should have a nurses meet!

How right you are about weird sense of humour. Jean. I can remember a nurse on night duty putting herself on a trolley and getting her colleague to send for a porter to take the 'body' to the morgue.All dutifully done except that half way along the corridor the body nurse' sat bolt upright and the poor porter had to be given tea in the kitchen to recuperate. Fortunately it was all taken in good spirit and night sister never found out.

I lived at Sharoe Green Hospital,Fulwood, Preston Lancashire and travelled to four hospitals for my placements; Sharoe Green, Preston Infirmary, Chorley Eaves Lane and the new Royal Preston Hospital.
Got to find my old photos now
Joan x

Happy reminiscing Joan. I too can remember painting limbs with iodine and the green sterile towles . You've brought back so many memories now to me I can't stop thinking about those days long ago!

I can not remember why it was done but I do remember 2 nurses going into the room where a skeleton was kept (for training new nurses) and putting it in the bed of one of the others nurses. We sat in the bedrooms waiting for her to come back from a night out and the screams when she pulled back the bedclothes and discovered her bed partner were very loud. She refused to sleep in the bed until sheet changing day and slept on the floor instead. Lol.

We did exactly the same thing to one of our 'set' when in PTS - what a laugh we had!!

I trained at Darlington Memorial in Darlington

When in PTS we did the same thing with the skeleton but got into serious trouble with our Sister Tutor,said we were being disrespectful of a dead person.

And oohh those starched collars did make a mark around your neck,but they with the aprons,cuffs and hats did look smart

Here's another memory----on Christmas Eve turning your cloak to the red lining and singing carols on the wards

We did that too. Who remembers making up your starched cap for the first time?

I do what a performance and then when I was a staff nurse you had to stitch it to get a frill at the back---they were lovely,but as my hair is fine I had a job keeping it on at times.

Did you wear suspenders---I did and when you stripped the beds you got a shock off the metal bedframe if it touched your sussies

What a lovely thread,so many memories on here.
Good old carbolic.
Anyone else roll up bandages on night duty and put into autoclave tin?
Also rolling up balls of cotton wool and cutting squares of gauze.
I even remember the suspenders...
Matron's round in the morning,when she would pounce on an unsuspecting nurse at random and god help you if you didn't know every patient's name,age,diagnosis and treatment..

Oh yes, trying to remember each patient's diagnosis, etc, especially when going round with night sister. Did any of you end up as a patient in your hospital whilst training? I did, had acute appendicitis during my first year!

Not while training but after I fell off my bike and Fractured my jaw!!!

Do you remember emptying the cardboard cartons inside the sputum pots---yuk and the sputum coming out in one long gooey string---nearly made me sick

Yuk Ann - yes!! I've just eaten a late lunch too! Remember the way we used to give enemas too - soapy solution, also rectal washouts and flatus tubes. Holding the end of the flatus tube in water and waiting for the bubbles!!

I can remember being on a student on the childrens ward on nights. It was Halloween and one of the Drs decided us nurses needed an anatomy lesson. He disappeared and came back with a skeleton. Thankfully the children didn't wake up. This poor skeleton ended up in a side room and the doctor bleeped the junior Dr to have a look at him as he was not very well. I'm not sure to this day whether the Junior Dr twigged what was going on as he asked for a second opinion. It was a good laugh.

Jane