When I was sixteen, my mom got me interested in being a volunteer at Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, PA, where she worked as an RN. It was a different medical world back then, nearly fifty years ago. The nurses all wore white dresses and white shoes, along with caps which identified where they studied nursing. My mom proudly balanced her Philadelphia General Hospital double-frilled cap on her head each and every shift she worked.
The nurses were the caregivers in the hospital. They made beds, bathed patients and changed their gowns, took vitals, dispensed medications, started IVs, changed dressings, and recorded everything by hand on paper charts. They hung glass bottles of IV solutions and took temperatures with glass oral thermometers. There were no aides or techs that I remember. The nurses handled everything.
Continue reading “Ice water, meal trays and a corpse”
Waite for it... 