I'm Going to Give You something to Think About! YEOWW

I stumbled upon this old image and it made my knees feel weak and my knuckles throb. It's a spitting image of my old time OR supervisor, Alice, who could wield a sponge stick with all the force of a burly cop swinging a billy club. This photo shows her assessing the severity of the infraction which will determine the location of the fulcrum to swing her weapon sponge stick from when it impacts the knuckles of her hapless victim. Swinging the sponge stick from the distal tip would inflict the most pain.

It looks like she is about to wail away with the fulcrum in mid position near the instrument's hinge. This was for relatively minor offenses  like passing an instrument to a resident rather than the attending surgeon, even though the resident was in the proper position to deal with the problem. Rules were rules-always provide the attending surgeon first.

The most brutal knuckle cracks were for any offense, real or imagined. that broke aseptic technique. Alice was an equal opportunity knuckle basher and residents were fodder for her cruel ministrations as well as nurses. She caught a young resident with his nostrils protruding over his mask and he received a double punishment, Cracked knuckles and a set of dental rolls plugging his nose. I think there might be an old post about that Aliceism somewhere amidst my foolishness.

What Was the Most Useless Old School Diagnostic Test?

 The first notion that popped into my foolish mind was the "spit test" for digitalis toxicity. The patient was asked to produce about 5 cc  of pure saliva which was tested for potassium levels. The notion being that a high level of potassium excreted in the saliva was indicative of toxicity. Everyone had a different threshold to spill potassium in their saliva and hypokalemic patients could be digitalis toxic and have a "normal" potassium level on their test. This procedure was relatively benign in that it seldom led to further testing and had it's lighter side involving nurses providing graphic descriptions to befuddled patients about the difference between saliva and sputum.

The Histamine stimulation test for determination of gastric acid output was one of the chief  villains when it came to useless or even downright harmful diagnostic tests. The test was widespread in that just about anyone experiencing epigastric pain was a candidate and it frequently got the patient placed on the medical hamster wheel of cascading invasive tests all of which led to virtually ineffective treatment.

The underlying principle of peptic ulcer  treatment was the Schwartz dictum (no acid-no-ulcer.) This was accomplished by the Sippee diet which consisted of hourly swigs of 1/2 and 1/2 which was kept iced in a bath basin at he bedside. Copious consumption of antacids was also encouraged. This treatment did not provide a long term cure, but for some provided symptomatic short term relief. Peptic ulcer treatment improved dramatically when Australian researchers showed the root cause of the disease was bacterial. This insight was the gateway to effective treatment for peptic ulcers.

The test was sheer misery for patients. Step "A" involved inserting a naso-gastric tube regardless of the difficulty passing it. Miss Bruiser, my favorite nursing instructor, "assisted" novice nursing students perform this procedure by forcing the hapless patient to  take sips of water from a glass as she forced  the liquid past their  lips all the while barking, "SWALLOW..SWALLOW."  She often explained to the student nurse that inserting an NG tube was just like fishing; just wait until you get a  bite  swallow and ram rod that slippery cylindrical hose home to the patients eagerly awaiting stomach.  "The patient will have to swallow eventually, just like the fish have to bite."  Meanwhile the patient was coughing and spraying the forced water right back in the direction of Miss Bruiser's face. Karma in action.

After the position of the NG tube was verified by auscultation; I always wrote that exact line in my nurse's notes because Miss Bruiser gave brownie points to students that used esoteric medical terminology.  Most of my fellow students simply noted that the position of the tube was checked. Next on the agenda for this procedure was an uncomfortable painful injection of histamine that burned like a blow torch and resulted in a sore arm for at least 5 days.  This stimulated acid production in the stomach just as pouring gasoline on a fire exacerbates the blaze. Headache, dizziness, flushed face, and profuse sweating were frequent side effects of the injection.

The last component of the test is where the rubber meets the road. At 30 minute intervals X3  a gigantic piston syringe is coupled to the NG tube and as much gastric acid as the law allows is sucked  aspirated and placed in a carefully marked specimen cup. Patients often complained that it felt their stomach was being pulled out through their nose. My stomach used to churn and ache just witnessing such an ordeal and it was a cause  for rejoicing when those slippery specimen cups were on their way to the lab for analysis..

When learning about the cause of peptic ulcers the "ulcer personality" was stressed and was described as a person experiencing resentment, anxiety, and anger. I never believed these traits were the cause of ulcers. I always suspected the ineffective medical interventions of the day and the sheer misery quotient of the diagnostic testing caused much of the ill will and bad feelings on behalf of the patients. It's amazing how long  such an inappropriate treatment can remain in place and become accepted practice. Of course such foolishness would never happen in the healthcare environment of today!

Skin to Skin Post Mortem Care

Skin to skin contact meant something entirely different to me than the currently popular post partum mother / infant tactile bonding technique. When I first heard the term, I asked myself  How in the world did someone discover one of my personal secrets?  I  felt compelled to lift the patient from the death bed or OR table with my bare arms contacting their skin. It was part of my way of saying goodbye.  There was a trick to this that involved spreading the morgue shroud open on a nearby Gurney with the distance dependent on the patient's weight. A 50 kg. patient could have the waiting litter across the room while a 100 kg "heavy hitter"  better be close to the bed. I tunneled my right arm under the patient's shoulders for a mid axillary target and my left arm went under the knees. A helper carefully supported the head while I carried the patient to the cart. There was something special about being there in actual contact with the patient skin to skin as they say. I always said a silent prayer for a peaceful journey to a peaceful place as I gently lowered them to the awaiting shroud.

Every old nurse had something unique and special to impart during post mortem care. Jane who was a dental hygienist before becoming a nurse always offered meticulous mouth care to the departed patient. When she was done the waste container was always filled with lemon glycerine swabs and an empty peroxide bottle. Bonnie hated to leave any tell tale sign of invasive medical procedures. The first thing she went for from the supply closet was adhesive tape remover and cartons of 4X4s. Every little bit of residual adhesive tape was lovingly removed. We did not have those fancy task specific devices to stabilize endotracheal tubes and all that tape about the lips and around the neck made an unsightly mess that Bonnie always made disappear. Lois hated those flimsy shoelace-like ankle and wrist ties and always substituted soft strips of wide Kerlix. After her gentle ties were in place she often kissed the patients hand. I hope I have a nurse like Lois when it's time for me to enter that shroud. I'm certain the journey to the other side will be pleasant with a send off like that.

Glass IV Bottles - Breaking Bad

Breaking a  glass IV bottle was the stuff nightmares were made of. There were three elements to
consider with shattering  old time glass IV bottles. The glass bottle, a liter of fluid (D5W took the prize for making the biggest mess due to it's inherent stickiness,) and an air gap. The air in the bottle served to amplify the crash of the glass breaking so as to sound almost like a rifle shot. Hearing that booming "CRACK" followed by a piercing scream alerted the entire floor of the mishap and summoned a legion of gawkers for the messy clean up. It was an unwritten rule that the clean up was the sole responsibility of the unfortunate breaker of the bottle - don't even thing about calling for a janitor, oops, I mean housekeeping person. An empty Cardboard IV case was placed on the floor close to the broken glass which was gingerly pushed  into the enclosure with a portion of the box top. The procedure always reminded me of catching a piranha  with your bare hands, a slippery mess with a laceration or bite close at hand.

Glass IV bottles were at risk for breakage because their girth made them difficult to grasp. When CDs were designed one of the goals to make them easy to handle. Designers of glass IV bottles were not concerned with ergonomics and the diameter of the glass  container expanded to fit the volume of the fluid. Thank heaven there were no 2 liter  IV bottles.

Another common mechanism of bottle breaking was undershooting the hanging notch on the IV pole. That thin wire hanger was difficult to see especially under bad lighting conditions and many an old nurse thought the bottle was about to nest safely on the pole only to have it come crashing down. A good luck/bad luck conundrum occurred when the rapidly descending bottle came crashing down on the nurse's foot. The bottle, cushioned by the nurse's toes remained intact but hobbled the hapless nurse. Maybe nurses should have worn steel toe shoes like heavy construction workers.

Miss Bruiser, my all time favorite nursing instructor had a favorite tactic for dealing with bottle breaking students. After haranguing and berating the student during the clean up she insisted the clumsy student carry a glass IV bottle with them for 24 hours. A unique combination of public humiliation and learning how to perform daily activities with an ever present glass IV bottle was an excellent deterrent.

Finally the rolly polly crash and break was another way to reduce the glass bottles to glistening shards.  Everyone was acutely aware that there was only one safe position for a glass IV bottle and that was vertical. Inadvertently setting a glass bottle on it's side resulted in it rolling away and crashing at some distance from the nurse. Nurses frequently turned the bottle to this vulnerable position to apply a timing strip or write a note on the bottle label. This unfortunate event almost always occurred at times of great stress when there was an unforeseen complication or unexpected event. An acute hypoglycemic crisis required an immediate IV and if that gigantic ampule of D50 rolled and shattered it was like having a bull in an IHOP restaurant with all those syrup bottles; sticky, gooey syrupy stuff everywhere.

Despite the potential for breaking, nurses hated to see those glass IV bottles morph into those silly looking flexible plastic bags. If the complaints and derisive comments about heavy duty enema cans being replaced by flimsy bags was bad, the ill will directed toward IV bags was even worse. Veteran nurses used to joke  ( I hope it was in jest)  about using those newfangled flexible plastic IV bags for enemas because that was about all they were suited for.