Nurses Caps

Dear Salty...I enjoyed the link very much. As a student nurse (I was hospital trained) I wore a nurse's cap for 3 years. Each year a stripe was added....red on white. We called them Isa stacks as Mt.Isa is a mining town and there is a very long chimney....our caps were cardboard stiff with starch and we had to see matron who made them up with pins. It gave her an opportunity to abuse us as well. We were supposed to see her when the cap got dirty, but with micropore sticky tape around the hair edge we went to see her exactly 3 times, as a stripe was added.

I graduated and received a registered nurse veil, by then in paper and wore it exactly once (at graduation). We burned them afterwards.

Some of the older nurses wore them when at work, but us brash and rebellious misses did not.

I worked for a greater portion of my career in ICU/ Crit Care Units, and caps/veils would have been a positive menace, I recall having to do dodge the sphagetti lines a lot, certainly to dislodge one would NOT have been in the patients best interest.....knocking out a bp supportve drug, or pacing wires.....gah how horrific.

Towards the end of my nursing career, I wore scrubs.....lovely loose fitting jimmy jams....which were easily changed if you had a spill ( fortunately rare in my case ). Certainly....a colour code as identification of what you are would be beneficial for the public. I was appalled that now in wards, as a patient you may THINK a registered nurse is looking after you, but that may not BE so. i personally believe as a member of the public, I would be more likely to talk about SOME things more readily to a registered nurse than to someone untrained knowing that it is more likely to be acted on.

 

Unsanitary, bacteria-laden, sexist, silly - can I say you'll never see me in one!

Rob (nurse)