Hospital diploma nursing schools mandated that all students reside in the dorm which was conveniently located within the hospital complex. Individuality was nipped in the bud with all student nurses sharing the misery while at the same time maintaining a pseudo happy face. A monastic-like existence was thought to enhance the nursing educational training experience. Older nurses viewed nursing as a cult and eschewed an outside life for the good of nursing.
These dorms were not fun places and novice nurses slept, woke, ate, slaved for 8 hours on the wards, ate again and studied under the watchful eyes of house mothers before sleeping again. As the bewitching hour of 9 PM rolled around it was time for some fun. House mothers, affectionately known as house hags, completed their last rounds before mandatory lights out at 10PM. The end result was one hour of time for which there was no accounting. Between 9 and 10PM was the bewitching hour.
Student nurses had to make their own fun in this stark environment that was devoid of televisions or any form of recreation that cost real money. Of course the sewing room was open, but who felt like mending aprons or fussing with uniforms after working or studying all day. Novice nurses were pretty much left to their own devices when it came to recreational pursuits.
Water fights were popular diversions with an enema can rigged above transoms to dump a deluge on anyone answering a knock on the door. The downside to water sports was the clean up and the screaming frequently attracted uninvited attention from nosy house mothers.
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| Water fights were fun, but messy |
Were you ever at the bottom of the pyramid? At that age being crushed by a handful of young women may have been worth it for the small chance of a pleasant experience through the promise of crushing pain. I remember being young and not likely to be killed by such shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I was never given the opportunity to participate in the pyramid building fun. I was not allowed past the first floor of the school of nursing which contained classrooms procedure labs and the library.
ReplyDeleteI shared a room in the hospital with a dental resident who spent most of his spare time practicing drilling on cadaver teeth with a portable dental drill. I still hear the screech of that drill when I close my eyes. The girls always updated me on the dorm shenanigans at beakfast before clinical began. It was a great way to start the day.
Oh no! I might hear dental drilling in my dreams now!
DeleteI sure hope not! Dental drilling sounds worse than any noise I heard in the OR. Maybe because it's a sound we can all personally relate to.
DeleteThis same dental roommate used to go on and on about how much he disliked patients with dental phobias. As a child a dentist pulled one of my teeth without a local. My fears were absolutely not phobic-about as grounded in reality as you can get!
These days they'd all be on their mobile phones OFRN, not building human pyramids. The youngsters today don't know what they're missing! Sue
ReplyDeleteIt's often stated that time assuages, but I still have way too many unpleasant memories of phones jarring me awake from a deep sleep to face the bright O.R. lights for an emergency trauma case. These middle of the night awakenings often turned me into a zombie the next day- not unlike the trance like state I see youngsters in while engaged with their smart phones. I'm happy to think I'll muddle through the rest of this life without ever owning a cell phone.
DeleteI was greeted by a water fight one of my very first weeks working as a brand new baby nurse! There are so many good memories associated with my first nursing job; it really did become home to a second family.
ReplyDeleteWe were getting ready for some hot mess of a patient, and just all standing around the room feeling antsy. Apparently it was tradition to screw with the new people, or maybe someone was just feeling spicy, but I caught a full saline flush directly to the abdomen literal moments before the patient rolled in - so I'm standing there with a soaking wet scrub top, trying to pass it off as nothing. At first opportunity my preceptor defended me with return flushes, the MD got caught in the crossfire, an RT decided to get involved, and everyone spent the golden hour in full on Flush Warfare over a poor ventilated patient who was none the wiser.
What saline flushes lack in volume, they make up for in convenience and velocity of the stream. There are a plethora of worthy delivery devices for assorted water fights in nursing. The favorite weapon in nursing school was those old fashioned enema cans. With tubing attached the soaking stream could be directed around corners or under doors. When the befuddled victim responded to the meager squirt from the tubing, the entire can could be unloaded. those were the days!
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