In the fall of 1962, I started my sophomore year at USF. We had practiced bedside nursing in the simulated patient bedsides at St. Mary’s Hall, using manikins and each other. We would now start learning in the hospital with actual patients.
The year began with our capping ceremony. We were all issued our student uniforms: green and white-stripped cotton dresses. Over our dresses we wore starched white aprons with large pockets that held our nursing scissors, pens and Kelly clamps--standard tools for all nurses. The day of the ceremony, we all dressed in our beautiful new uniforms and proceeded to the chapel in St. Mary’s Hospital. We attended Mass together as a class and the capping ceremony followed. Our families joined us for this exciting event. The minute those caps were placed on our heads, we really felt like nurses. Now the real challenge of practicing those skills we had been mastering in the dorm would be used for the benefit (we hoped) of real patients.
Our sophomore year rotations in the hospital were in Medical-Surgical nursing, which included communicable disease nursing, orthopedic nursing, all non-surgical medical hospitalizations and surgery. Most all of our training that year was done at St. Mary’s Hospital. The only exception was our unit on Tuberculosis, which we did at San Francisco General Hospital. Even though we were all students, I remember that the staff at SF General welcomed us with open arms. Extra help is always appreciated in a hospital. They didn’t have to pay us and we were very enthusiastic learners; and the patients seemed to enjoy our working with them as well.
I remember my rotation in surgery most vividly. It didn’t take me long to realize I was not cut out to be a surgical nurse. First, they taught us how to do a ten-minute arm and hand scrub before entering surgery. I marvel to this day how surgical staff could possibly have any skin left after years of scrubbing with a stiff brush before each surgical case for a full ten minutes. I still remember that awful stinging and eventual burning of my skin from those brushes.
Aside from the painful scrubbing, my next problem was staying sterile in the surgical unit itself. When we entered surgery, we had on a surgical cap, surgical clothe booties over our shoes, sterile gowns, surgical mask and sterile rubber gloves. When we worked in surgery, our instructor stayed with us through the surgery and attempted to keep us sterile. If we inadvertently touched anything in the surgical suite, new pieces of protective gear were added. For example, if we hit the overhead light extender, we would end up with a second surgical cap on our heads. If our arm brushed up against a wall, we would have a second sleeve added to our gown over the first. If we touched the patient with a glove, a second glove was immediately added over the first glove.
I am sure that your mind’s eye can envision the layers of extra caps, gowns and gown sleeves, shoes and gloves I was wearing by the time I left surgery. Klutzy folks are not encouraged to consider surgical nursing as a future career! Sister Noreen, our surgical nursing instructor, was pleased to hear I didn’t foresee surgery as my future calling.
General Medical and Orthopedic floors were my favorite nursing assignments during my sophomore year. Most medical and orthopedic patients tended to be in the hospital longer than surgical patients. Longer patient stays meant we had more time to build rapport and trust with our patients. Some of our encounters with patients could be traumatic. I’m sure all nurses remember their first IV start, their first catheterization, and their first enema. I’m equally sure that their patient’s retained equally vivid memories of those sometimes-torturous procedures as well. When one had success on the first try with these procedures, both the patient and nursing student were very happy. The probability of initial success, however, was not high.
But, by June, our confidence in our ability as nursing students was growing. We optimistically headed home for the summer to get jobs in local hospitals as nurses’ aides to help us maintain and improve our bedside skills, until we returned as Juniors the following September.
To be continued
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