When The KARDEX Was King of Communication

Glen from Texas emailed me with a suggestion to write about my experiences with the nursing KARDEX which he advised is disappearing. I had no idea. How could something with so much utility just up and disappear?

Christians have their Bible, Jews have the Torah,  and nurses from a bygone era had their KARDEX. Named after a company that specialized in using index cards for data storage, KARDEXES  were the center piece of any nursing station. Patient charts come and go with whoever snatches them up, but the KARDEX is always front and center at any gathering of nurses. Change of shift report without this wonderful collection of data would be impossible.

The front and back of  a vintage KARDEX was a solid sheet of gunmetal grey steel with a piano hinge through the midsection. When you opened this hefty collection of vital information an audible, metallic  CLUNK would echo around the room. That harmonious sound reminded me of a church bell announcing that something important was about to happen. The flipping through the KARDEX index cards  made a gentle rustling sound like the wind blowing through a Midwest cornfield just before the combine moved in for harvest. What a contrast to the contemporary clicking, bleeping, and clacking of a computer keyboard. I loved this bit of KARDEX  acoustic candy because it was an auditory sign that my shift was over and more peaceful, restful times were ahead.

What information was included in the KARDEX?  Everything a nurse needed to know when providing patient care: demographics, treatments, medications, allergies, consults, code status,
 urine reductions, diet, surgery, I&Os, IVs, and  IM injection rotation sites (everyone received these painful ministrations and rotating the  sites distributed the pain over a larger area).  The patient's name and physician was written in ink, but everything else was written in pencil and unlike the medical record, subject to erasure. The Kardex was not a formal document and when the patient was discharged, the cards were ceremoniously tossed in the circular file. No HIPPA - No shredding.  Identity theft was unheard of.

From my blogging foolishness, I can attest to the fact that people say different things under the cloak of anonymity and the KARDEX was no different. I was a quiet and reserved scrub nurse and just look at the blowhard  I've become  with an anonymous blog.  Notations in the Kardex were not signed and nurses perfected a generic form of printing to avert handwriting analysis. This cloak of secrecy  promoted blunt and sometimes crude KARDEX entries.  KARDEX notations often liberated many a nurse's free spirit and foolishness was not too far away.

Nurses who came  before me often had to administer painful and unpleasant (to say the least) treatments and never took "no" for an answer. Rather than write that it was necessary to restrain or hold a patient to the bed for a treatment, code words were used. "Patient needs assistance maintaining proper position for enemas," sounds better than "restrain his arms to prevent fighting to dislodge  enema tube."  In pediatrics the youngsters often needed "help" to receive painful injections or treatments. Those old school nurses were a force to be reckoned with and their KARDEX entries sometimes bordered on fiction. I vowed to never cultivate a mean, sadistic nature present in these hard core care givers.

As I was thinking about the KARDEX, a stream of odd ball and memorable entries returned to my obtunded consciousness. Every student nurse remembers their very first patient. Mine happened to be a pleasant, young Hispanic man recovering from a heroin overdose. Prominently displayed on his index card was a very good suggestion: No heroin on discharge.

Downey VA could be a very dangerous place to work and assaults were an unfortunate occurrence. A night  nurse pulled from the medical side of the facility left an ominous warning taped to the front of the KARDEX: Unsafe to be in attendance here  at ant time. DO NOT ask me to cover this ward again. I heartily concurred but could not do much about my situation. Building 66 was my permanent assignment.

Folks addicted to drugs had a very difficult time in vintage hospitals and old school nurses seemed to delight in social engineering to make their stay as miserable as possible. The old "That'll learn ya" attitude on steroids. A frequent entry on a drug addicted patient's Kardex was: Known drug abuser-no pain meds of any kind.

Floor is slippery. Patient expectorating giant phlegm globs.  Enough said.

If patient is experiencing difficulty voiding, have him blow through a drinking straw. Along with running the sink, this trick really worked.

On the post-partum unit: Remind patient to pull inverted nipples out. Ouch..as if the delivery experience wasn't bad enough.

A patient, Dudley, that I cared for as a student nurse smelled of urine no matter how carefully I bathed him. A perusal of the KARDEX offered an unusual explanation of the pungent odor.  Remove patient's prosthetic leg  from the room on PM shift. He awakens at night and fills it with urine.

Have footwear at bedside for AM pulmonary function testing. We all knew what this entailed.  PFTs were conducted in the stairwell at the end of the hall. If a patient could ascend  2 flights of steps with a  resident encouraging him from behind, he was deemed an acceptable surgical risk. Just be careful not to slip on the giant pools of phlegm/mucous left behind on the steps.

Some patient families are prepared for just about any contingency. I remember well the family that brought a 3 piece suit to the hospital with a dying patient. The KARDEX notation:  Make sure the suit in the clean utility room goes with the undertaker when he comes for the body. Yikes!

KARDEXES were the hospital equivalent of a jungle telegraph and revealed information that you were afraid to ask about or never knew existed. I think rigid and permanent forms of medical record keeping, electronic or paper, can block nursing inventiveness that drive holistic care. The old KARDEX unleashed the nursing free spirit by delineating what really worked for the patient.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Le Mesurier's Hammock - An Early Scoliosis Treatment

Kids have unique gifts and abilities; some are smart, others have artistic ability, and last but certainly not least, some  are preternaturally athletic. I could not lay claim to any of these wonderful  attributes, but I did posses the gift, if you could call it that, of unusual joint flexibility. I could take my heel and twist it at an acute angle and tuck it behind my head. My favorite move was performed from a seated position and involved taking my right foot and lifting it above my straightened left leg while pulling it toward my body. Why did I enjoy such foolishness? I guess the answer was similar to the reason climbers give when they ascend Mount Everest - "Because it's there."

My Mom, a long suffering nurse from the Greatest Generation  did not appreciate my skills as a junior contortionist. Just when I had finished twisting myself up like a pretzel, she would holler, "Stop that tomfoolery before I take you to the hospital and string you up in a Le Mesurier's  Hammock. Do you want curvature of the spine?"  Her admonishment did little to curtail my extremity entanglement and circumvolition  activities, but it did whet my curiousity about that hammock thing threat. "How bad can that be?"  Le Mesurier's Hammock conjured up restful, peaceful experience. My next order of business was an investigation into the how and whys of the hammock threat. This could prove interesting.

Like me, my Mom retained her old nursing school textbooks and class notes which were carefully archived  heaped in a basement corner. One day while perusing the hodge-podge collection of nursing texts a serious looking black bound tome called out to me.  Nursing of Children  was the no-nonsense title and the table of contents listed topics like Diseases of the Glands, Spasmophilia, Hordeolum of the Eye, and Early Correction and Fusion in the Treatment of Scoliosis.

During my quest for hammock enlightenment I happened upon a chapter  about bedsores. This little tidbit of medical horror instilled a sleep disorder that persisted well into adolescence. In a mood of wonderment and sheer terror my eyes popped at the images of patients with oozing gaping wounds on their lateral hips and shoulders sustained by simply lying in bed. How could this be?  I made a note to myself to awaken q2 hours to check myself for these loathsome lesions. A peaceful night's sleep was gone forever because visions of bedsores danced in my head. Some things never change, now it's a pain in the prostate that awakens me q2 hours for that lonely journey to the can.

Finally a chapter in the orthopedic section about a condition known as spinal scoliosis revealed the LeMesurier's Hammock treatment. This was another one of those medical misadventures treatments that involve harnessing the spinning earth's gravitational pull. Weighted speculums that are ram rodded in various orifices to gain exposure during surgery are a twisted, devious use of gravity  but the LeMesurier's hammock use of this force  was far more grotesque.

When one views the history of treatment of pathological spinal curvature it is apparent that crude and brutal measures rule the roost. Lemesurier's Hammock involved placing the patient in an orthopedic bed that had risers on each corner connected via an overhead frame matching the dimensions  of the bed. These steel framed monstrosities were frightening in their own right but add traction pulleys and assorted doodads for limb fixation and they resembled medieval racks that could dish out unthinkable tortures. YIKES and double YIKES.

A scoliosis patient in position just prior to application of the hammock.

The victim's scoliosis patient's ankles  wrists were liberally padded and heavy leather cuffs are applied and connected by traction cord to pulleys on the corners of the ortho bed. The extremities begin their audacious ascent until the patient is suspended so the apex of the spinal curve is straightened. After a couple of days hanging around over the net, a body cast is applied and a large window cut to expose the operative site. A surgical spinal fusion is the final step in this uplifting treatment.

Helpful tips from this vintage nursing text advise that the leather cuffs can be sourced from the psychiatric ward and the hammock portion can be constructed from ordinary fishnet. The reference to the psychiatric ward  probably foretold impending problems. Patients subjected to 4 point suspension over a surplus fishing net are likely to sustain psychotic ego fragmentation and the nursing staff subject to PTSD. Perhaps a package deal is in order with the whole the whole kit and caboodle; patient, nurses, and leather restraint cuffs  winding up back on the psych floor.

Nurses are stuck in the quicksand of existing knowledge and looking back it's shocking to realize the barbarity of period treatments like LeMesurier's Hammock. It's amazing what patient's will submit to when the treatment is ordered by paternalistic  physicians attired in immaculate white lab coats uttering trite expressions such as, "It's all for your own good." Old school nurses in there all white uniforms and caps were a commanding presence too. It would have been tough to say "no" to authority figures like that and probably wouldn't have stopped their ministrations if you did.

Drinking Bile

No, that's not bile in a T-tube drainage bag. It's a bilious beverage 

just waiting to wet your whistle. Bottoms up!

Waste not / want not was the mantra in epoch hospitals. This philosophy led to events like performing sterile procedures with 2 fingercots and overly judicious rationing of utilities. There were almost no lights on after dark so night nurses always had a flashlight on hand. Recycling and reuse were common with "disposable"  equipment having an almost infinite life span.

Recycling was not limited to medical equipment. Gall bladder surgery was a brutal and miserable experience  with a huge subcostal incision in close proximity to the diaphragm so every breath exacerbated post-op pain. A T-tube was usually placed in the common bile duct during surgery and drained the greenish yellow unsavory goo in a nearby bag.

Bile is a vital component in the digestive process and works to emulsify and break down fat. A deficit of this greenish gooey fluid results in an unpleasant condition known as steatorrhea whereby fat passes through the intestines undigested. An unusually putrid scented diarrhea is the end result.

To avert steatorrhea old school surgeons had a very direct and straightforward solution.  They ordered the night nurse to save the contents of the biliary drainage bag and serve a glass of this gruesome green goop to the patient prior to breakfast. Hospital breakfasts were notorious for their high fat content. Just about every meal was a permutation of that All American staple, bacon and eggs which was a steatorrhea stimulator of the highest order.

The disgusting bile beverage was best served in an opaque vessel such as a coffee cup so as to obscure that yucky green visual stimulation. Minimal explanation was also important. The nurse never drained the bile into the serving container in view of the patient. Optimal bile bag emptying was done with the patient sound asleep and unaware of the impending tortuous tipple. Old school nurses were masters of deception and were even known to ask patients to turn over for a temperature check. While they were prone a painful and totally unexpected intramuscular injection was hastily administered.

The bile drinking gambit  was not much different than the stealthily plunge of the 18 gauge needle during the temperature diversion injection. Either experience was misery of the highest order no matter how it was presented. Bile had a unique earthy/nasty scent to it that could not be masked and the bitter salty taste was cringe worthy. Oh..And be sure to offer mouth care after bile consumption. It promoted dental decay.

Did bile recycling help patients? That's a tough question. Perhaps the diversion of consuming the vile liquid distracted them from their symptoms. It's always prudent to maintain a high level of suspicion when offered just about any beverage from an old nurse. Better safe than sorry.

High Tech Hemorrhoid Surgery Meets Old School Positioning Techiques

The advances in modern surgical technique always amaze me. I recently found myself fascinated by a  newfangled hemorrhoidectomy procedure. The surgeon was working with a high tech laser device and magically zapping the 'rhoids into submission while an assistant struggled to manually pry the buttocks apart with the patient flat on the table. High tech meets low tech in the totally unnecessary and difficult manual retraction for operative site exposure. Leave it to OFRNs like me to offer tips to improve the bottom line.

Old school hemorrhoid surgery was a backward, crude sort of affair. A surgical assistant grabbed the offending hemorrhoid with a Babcock and pulled it skyward. At this point Dr. Salmbow would give the command, "Meatball it!" The stretched pile was quickly tied off with a ligature and cut free with a Metzenbaum scissors. Then it was on to the next 'rhoid. At the conclusion of the case some wise guy was sure to proclaim, "We really Wrecked EM." Nurses were always advised to chuckle at a surgeon's attempts at jocularity.

Proper positioning was key to this procedure and there was none of that  struggling or manual prying of the offending, shielding nature of the site occluding  buttocks. Old school OR nurses were adept at exposing just about any body part with the use of sandbags, rolled washcloths or towels, airplane belts,  and  3 inch J&J adhesive tape. The secret ingredient was tincture of benzoin which was the old time equivalent of modern super glue.

Hemorrhoid surgery began by placing the patient in the jack knife position as shown above. The buttocks were then liberally painted with tincture of benzoin which usually brought out the Picasso in me although  I suspect he never had a palette like this. The benzoin served to affix the adhesive tape aggressively to the skin. Next a 3 inch by 2 foot section of adhesive tape was applied to the buttock and then pulled laterally like a piece of taffy. When the "pull" was sufficient the opposite end was wrapped around the under table rails of the OR table. An additional strip of tape could be applied at a right angle to  this main "spreader" for oversize patients. The end result; a perfectly exposed operative site.

Abrupt removal of tincture of benzoin secured adhesive tape frequently enhanced a patient's emergence from general anesthesia. That stuff was a real challenge to separate from the skin in a civilized manner.

I often thought that the Preparation H folks should advertise by showing snippets of forcible hemorrhoid removal. Hemorrhoid surgeries were enough to convince me of the value of topical treatments.

Fun With Operating Room Kick Buckets

My recent visit to Pennsylvania Dutch Country rebooted a long dormant memory of an unfortunate incident  with that wheeled dervish, an operating room kick bucket. The Amish eschew internal combustion engine powered transportation devices in favor of things like foot powered scooters. One foot remains firmly planted on the scooter platform while the opposite lower extremity propels the device with intermittent kicking motions. As we shall see, that mode of propulsion is not exclusive to Amish scooters.

Kick buckets in the OR are similar to Amish scooters in that they share the ability to move through space on wheels and are about the same size. My tale begins as another long case comes to a conclusion and I am involved in the usual post-op prattle with Janess, the exhausted scrub nurse. As she descended from the artfully OFRN designed scrub nurse  platform her foot landed smack dab in the middle of a carelessly positioned  kick bucket. The wide opening at the bucket top guided her foot into the much smaller base firmly entrapping and immobilizing her leg in the contraption. Luckily the bloody sponges had been removed from the kick bucket or the situation could have been rather messy.

The ensuing commotion soon aroused the attention of our hypervigilant supervisor, Alice, who added to the cacophony with one of her bitter diatribes. "Look what you've done now you clumsy little goofus. I've got a mind to teach you a lesson that you won't soon forget," shrieked Alice.

Janess was now a hostage of her sympathetic nervous system which activated the flight or fight instinct. Alice was a contentious character with a military background so the only viable option was flight without further ado. With one foot entrapped in the confining but mobile kick bucket, Janees used her free extremity to propel herself through the open door with all the skill of an Amish scooter driver. Alice was not up to speed with her arthritic knees so Janess was able to open up a substantial lead and soon disappeared into the locker room. The ensuing laughter soon took the wind from Alice's sails and we all lived happily ever after...sort of. Folks that work together in stressful environments like operating rooms often transforms themselves into one big dysfunctional family. It did not seem like much fun at the time but in a strange way, these were some of the best years of my life.

I'm unplugging ( Tee Hee - as if Oldfoolrns  like me can be plugged in) and heading to PA Dutch country for a week or so. I just love being around the Amish and maybe I can think of some new posts worth reading.

Ring Stand Challenge Racing

An official makes last minute preparations to the race course.

Old school operating rooms were brimming with an assortment of unsavory, unpleasant and downright dangerous tasks; from unclogging floor drains occluded with who knows what to running test firings on  hissing and sputtering behemoths that passed as autoclaves. Who cleans up the room after a trauma case and who tends to the patient?  We used to draw straws with discarded suture for the equitable assignment of these nasty tasks. For the athletically inclined, the alternative to games of chance like the drawing of straws  was ring stand races with the winner awarded the undesirable  task of their choice.

Ring stands were a piece of operating room furniture designed to hold large basins of solutions used during the case. Before the advent of modern  disposable surgical gloves ring stands were used to rinse talc off reusable gloves. This ubiquitous piece of equipment was a favorite plaything for old school OR nurses. Contests of skill involving the tossing of various objects through the ring stand gradually evolved to attempts involving the passing of  an entire nurse's entire body up from the base of the stand and out of the elevated dastardly top disc that served as the finish line. The contest obviously favored the petite, lithe, thin contestant. Since I met none of these criteria, I was an almost certain loser and frequently found my self with a ring stand stuck on my ample waistline. My buffoonery quickly transitioned to outright embarrassment as the laughing of my colleagues crescendoed .

An official race began with 2 nurses facing the race course ring stand. On the "GO" command the nurses slid down to the floor like a limbo dancer and contorted their way up through the opening in the ring stand. The next stage of the contest was the hard part and involved slithering your body all the way through the ring stand with the victor emerging free of that confining circle. Older nurses always positioned the ring stand parallel to the OR table and leaned against it for assistance. Lithe youngsters could use their upper arm strength to rise above the confining circle. Victory was sweet with the winner having a justified sense of power knowing the choice of unsavory tasks was their choice.

For my next post, I'm thinking about another piece of OR furniture that could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys - the kick bucket.