On my first ward - male medical - I found myself being asked to cook scrambled eggs for the men in our care. It took five washes to get it totally clean, but he was so chuffed with it.’Īnother part of the job was making snacks for patients who couldn’t face hospital food. ‘Once I was asked to wash a homeless man’s sleeping bag. ‘I loved being able to wash their clothing, especially when they didn’t have relatives to help,’ remembered one nurse. Some departments even had washing machines and nurses would do the laundry for patients. Pictured: A surgeon at Westminster Hospital carves a turkey for nurses and patients in a ward at ChristmasĪt one time a tiny tablet of soap, toothbrush and toothpaste were provided for those who didn’t own such things or came into hospital as an emergency. Order was restored.’Īnother part of the job was making snacks for patients who couldn’t face hospital food. ‘Discreetly, the consultant drew her behind the curtains, advised her of the delicate matter and she emerged red-faced, smoothing her dress. ‘The ward round set off and, horrors, Sister’s dress was caught in her knickers.
Heaven knows how the conversation went following the embarrassing incident witnessed by a nurse named Anne. Once the white-coated entourage had reached No 19, the sister nodded to a junior nurse to put the kettle on, deploying her best china to entertain the consultant to a cup of tea in her office. The typical ‘Nightingale’ ward contained 24 beds. ‘I think that it would have been acceptable to have run around with a feather duster flicking any sign of dust or imperfections from each patient prior to the Great Man’s Arrival.’ ‘The ward must be tidy, beds made, wheels turned in, curtains back and all patients sitting up in bed, preferably at the same angle. My research included interviews with former nurses such as Linda who described the preparation for the ward rounds at the Manchester Royal Infirmary in the 1960s. These days, hospitals are all about team work rather than hierarchy and ward rounds are unlikely to be treated so grandly The emphasis then was on doing rather than thinking, as reflected in my forthcoming book about the rituals which provided security and comfort for both patients and staff and were, some argue, part of the healing process.įortunately, some of the more bizarre rituals have been done away with and today’s nurses question any practice that is not based on scientific evidence.
Some nursing schools required you to send in a photo of yourself while others asked for details of your father’s occupation and there is no doubt that my family heritage helped Bart’s overlook my lack of a maths O-level. They ranged from the quality of your needlework to references from a reverend, with St Thomas’s Hospital in London demanding at one time that the latter should be supplied by no less than three different ministers of religion. I came in at the tail-end of an era in which entry requirements could be fairly bizarre. Today it is degree-based, with new recruits needing to have three A-levels, to meet the demands of what is now a complex job. I qualified in 1983 and, after two decades working as a health journalist, briefly returned to nursing, working at a district hospital in Oxfordshire, by which time there had been huge changes in the profession.Īs any nurse who worked in the hospitals of yesteryear will tell you, the big event of the day was the ward round, presided over by consultants who often demanded to be treated like gods
These days, hospitals are all about team work rather than hierarchy and ward rounds are unlikely to be treated so grandly.īut they were still very much a feature of life when my mother trained in the 1950s and I in the 1980s, both at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. On another female surgical ward, the head man required an unfortunate student nurse to dance attendance upon him, holding a hot water bottle on her outstretched hands so he could warm his own hands before examining a patient. To speed up his round, one gynaecologist insisted that all patients on his ward had to be waiting on top of their beds with their underwear off and covered with a blanket which could be whipped off should the need to examine them arise. As any nurse who worked in the hospitals of yesteryear will tell you, the big event of the day was the ward round, presided over by consultants who often demanded to be treated like gods.
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