Dear Friends:

Back in the early 70s, I loved Intensive Care Unit nursing. The notion of
ICU grew out of Recovery Room, where some folks took too long to recover and
had to be kept and monitored until they got stable enough to leave.

In the neurological/neurosurgical ICU where I began my nursing work,
pseudomonas and his good buddy klebsiella were *the* nasty superbugs. This
is 1970-74 and was true in every ICU I worked in until R. Adams Crowley's
Shock Trauma Unit at the U of Maryland. There, the nurses dipped their hands
in a betadine solution. There were none of those nasty germs and many nurses
had no skin on their hands.

I'll always remember their particular smells, of fountains of burbling dark
red syrup bubbling out of trach tubes and the green odoriforous discharge of
pseudomonas. and 21 young year old me there, gloved, wielding a suction
catheter and breathing through her mouth.

Yikes. They're back. I think they were the impetus for the first
cephalosporins, maybe or even gentamycin? (I could definitely be wrong
here!)

warmly,
Nikki (Schultz) Lee, who started her hospital nursing career in the ICUs of
the old Bellevue Hospital, where at least one of the clerical and
housekeeping staff was a junkie. That world was full of drama. (St.
Elsewhere was the TV show modeled on a Boston version of Bellevue.)
The hospital was crawling with young handsome medical men of all ages and
ranks and nationalities. I had unlimited energy and would work doubles for
fun. Such zest.

I saw erysipelas there and fulminating breast cancers. Belleuve was one of
the best training grounds because of the depth and variety of exposure.

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome