Gene Ray Interview conducted in his home in Boone, NC by project photographer Ashley

Transcription

1 Gene Ray Interview conducted in his home in Boone, NC by project photographer Ashley Warren, as well as Madison Goodwin and Courtney Maness from Dr. Katherine Ledford s Appalachian Stories course. Q1 Who are you, When and where were you born? My name is Gene Ray. I was born in Asheville, North Carolina in May 18. Q2 What did your parents do for a living? My mother was a domestic worker, worked in houses. And my father did body work for cars at Lee Barnetts. Q3 Did you contribute to the family income or help your parent s in their work in any way? No. Q4 What did you do for a living? I started off as a nurse, working at Watauga hospital, LPN. I worked there for six and a half years then I went to the Watauga Nursing Home and I worked there while I was working at Appalachian State University. I started working there in Q5 How did you decide on your career? I have always been the type of person that loved to take care of people and make sure that they re happy and everything. After high school, I had a guidance counselor that told me I never would be able to go into nursing but I did. I went to Caldwell institute down there and worked for, let s see...my schooling was 14 months and then I came out as an LPN. Took my state boards.

2 Q6 How would you say the work has changed since you started? Tremendously, tremendously. When I went into Nursing, it was more the patient. You took care of the patient, made sure that if they needed anything, or the family, or anything like that you would talk with them and make sure that the patient was comfortable and everything. Now, the way that I see it now, is its more education. You don't get that much one-on-one with the patient and the nurse. Most of the time the nurses now are more into a lot of bookwork and learning you know that and doing that and letting the nurses aids do what the nurses usually do, most of it. Not all of it but most of it. Q7 Describe a typical work day When I went in, I worked on, started off on evening shift and I was the medication nurse. What I would do, I would go in, we would get report from the nurses that were on before us and find out what each patient had had done. I worked surgical floor. So we would find out what operation they had done or what was going on with that patient, if they d had a bad day, if we needed to, you know, be more particular about certain patients than others. Which I had 20 patients at that time on the second floor but that was it and then I would go and start their medicines, which their medicines had to be given precisely on time. Sometimes you would run into events where you couldn't do it right then or the patients wouldn't be able to take their medicines, they d refuse it or you might have to help with their treatments or help with some of the other nurses or something, you might be short so you might have to help take patients plus do your medicines and stuff.

3 Q8 What type of people did you work with? When I started there weren't that many male nurses so it was mainly females. Your main thing was your doctors, you'd have to make rounds with them, make sure that you got down exactly what they wanted each patient, their treatment for them, if there's any changes in medicine stuff then you'd have to come back and write all this down, although the doctors dictated it. You would have to come back and write it all down and then make sure that you called the pharmacies to get their medicines and stuff, make sure that the medicines were there for the next shift when they come. That and the people I worked with, I was very lucky in that the people I worked with were great. One funny thing about it was, the shift that I worked on, we had three people names Gene. So when they would holler for Gene all three of us would holler, one was a ward secretary, the other one was a nurses aid and then I was the nurse, so we'd all holler at the same time. Q9 When did you work? time? (day/night) (weekdays/weekends) I worked 3 p.m. 11 p.m. the whole week, maybe I would work like seven days and then have a day off. Also while I was in that I worked in back with the ladies that were having children, the OB Department, that didn't last. I liked, I worked one night on 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Seven o clock when I was supposed to get off, I had nine deliveries and I had to clean every one of em up, make sure everyone of em was measured so that I could report to the next one. One funny thing about that, we had one that was born and I was just walking outside of the nursery and the doctor came out and told this father, he said, you're the proud father of a baby girl and the nurses called him back real quick, so he went back in there so when he came back out the

4 doctor said you're the proud father of a baby girl and he said yes you just told me that and he said no, two. About that time, he passed out, hit the floor, oh yes. It was something though, during that time also when I was in training we were back in the delivery room and everything like that and you would think that men would pass out, we had two nurses and three men in our class and one of the ladies passed out so what we did, we just pulled her round to the back where it was cold, and laid her down and watched. Every time she d get up she d pass back out, but she did graduate. Q10 What do you do with downtime at work? We didn't have that much down time, what we would do, we would go behind the nurse s station and be available in case the doctors wanted to talk to us or talk with some of our colleagues or something like that. We didn't have much downtime in that part of it, and then the operating room, which I also worked. In the operating room, you didn't have any downtime at all. You just went to lunch and you were thankful if you could get your meal ate because most the time they'd call you back within ten minutes you'd have to fly back upstairs. OK that meant that you would have to re do a complete wash from elbows down, and that took some time to do that because you have to be sterile from here down. It was good though, I liked it. Q11 Does your occupation have any special sayings or expressions? What are they? How did they come about? Well there was a little conflict between the LPNs and the RNs because, like I said before the,

5 most of your LPNs, your Licensed Practical Nurses they were more involved with the patients and one of the sayings was that LPN stood for Low Paid Nurse and of course RN they said was Real Nurses. There was one rule that we had to follow was, what you see here, what you do here, stays here when you leave here. That was in our little kitchen and they would always ask you these things, our director of nurses and head nurse and all that, they would come through, Now what's the little thing that you re supposed to do you know? and I m going, I know that by heart, leave me alone so I can get my medicines done, but it was, like I said, it was good there. Q12 What special knowledge, skills, and abilities are needed? What techniques and methods? Well you had to have the knowledge of what the nurse was supposed to do, what each, the LPN and the RN. At that time, LPNs did just about everything but start IVs, depending on your doctor, you could hang blood but, if you hung blood before he left the hallway, he had to sign that he told you to do it. That was some the skills you had to learn how to take blood pressures, temperatures, make beds at that time which they don't do now. Our instructor would come along and you would use the flat sheets and you have to make em tight, just like you were in the Army, bounce a dime on it. She d come through and bounce a dime on it to make sure. You also had to be able to do a clean the bed up from top to bottom, you had to roll your patients, you had to know how to roll your patients If they had broken legs or whatever over so that you could change their linen. You had to be very, most of the time, courteous to your patients and visitors. Sometimes that ran into problems but anyhow, that was some of the techniques that

6 we had and like I said, the methods that we used depending on the patient you had to even put your pull-up bars and stuff for people. As a matter a fact, we had two patients to come in that broke each one of their legs in three different places, well we had four but one had to be sent, his parents didn't want him to stay here, they were in skiing accidents and ran through a fence. OK, in those patients you have to put up the tractions, OK you have to come through and you have to adjust the tractions and one of the guys that did that, he was bigger than any bed that we had so that meant that we had to order more traction for him and his legs stuck out probably about that far from the edge of the bed, so he was in constant pain. You have to know how to take care of your burn victims, you also had to take care of your medical people, your doctors if they come in which a lotta nurses did not like that. We had one that came in and everybody was scared to death to even go and take care of him, even go in and give him a shot or give him his medicine anything, I went in because I did part of my training under him when I was training and I d go in and I d tell him, I d say OK it s time for your medicine, he d reach out and give him his medicine and all, still said well I gotta give you a shot. OK, so he just turned over so I could give him his medicine in his hip and to say before that when I first started my nursing instructor, I graduated in I think I stayed, I didn't go to work for about 2 weeks after that, she was my first patient and I had to give her a shot which kinda scared me, she said I know you can do it, you go ahead so I did, she had had surgery so I went ahead and give it to her, she said I told you you could do, I said yeah you just don't know how much I wanted to not do it.

7 Q13 What are things about your work outsiders would not expect? In the nursing part of it, outsiders or lay people would not really, I don't think that a lot of people could go through and be nurses because of the situations that you are in, the things that you see, which goes back to the little things I was tellin you about, what you see here, and the medicines that you give and are responsible for, every one of em and you're responsible for each patient that's under you, you really are and it's, now like I said, not your RNs but your lower employees and stuff like that under there, they, a lot of em don't make it because in my class we started out with 22 people and we graduated 12, so it's very tedious work and like I said some of things you see in there, it really breaks your heart. One instance is we had a lady that came in that had liver cancer and when they told me to help them they didn't tell me that she had lost all of her hair, she had a wig on so I was at the head of the stretcher lifting her over to her bed - her wig fell off and patients are very touchy, first thing she did was look straight up at me. They tell you in the field not to show any expression which is very, I ll say it again, very hard not to but I didn t, the wig fell off and she looked straight up at me and I just kinda smiled at her and put her over in the bed. OK this particular person told me that I would be there when she passed, she told her, she said you will be here when I pass and I said how do you know I will, she said you will and she had in her bedside table, she had her all of her clothes she wanted put on her, she had the wig she wanted put on her, she told me how she put her hands, how to put her feet before her daughters could see her so I went and got one of the nurses aids, the mother came or the mother in-law came to me said I think it's about time you know so I went back in and we got, I told the daughters I said stay outside, I said because I m just gonna check her knowing that she

8 had already passed so I went in and we got her all fixed up and everything then let the family in and I was there, I did not expect to be there but she did, she knew I was which was good. Things like that a lot of people wouldn't be able to deal with, you show your emotions either when you get home or you show em to some of your colleagues, now like when she passed I went behind the nurse s station and cried. And the first one that I that did pass on me, I started to run off and leave em but my instructor wouldn't let me, scared me to death. That was another thing then, I don't know how they do it now, but then you were to stay with that patient until the mortuary people come to get em, the reason for that is in that past there have been people, loved ones, that have come and got their loved one and took em without the nurses or anybody knowing it, they've just come in and sneaked em down the steps or something and you don't know where they re at and you re responsible for em until you know their taken which is, sometimes it gets bad, and children it really bothers me when children, that was one of the reasons that I stopped nursing then in the hospital, I had a 16 year old, I was working operating room then and he came in and he had cancer, and they had already surgered on him but he came back in they told him he d probably come back in, he came back in when he was 17 going on 18 and he had lung cancer and he told me he said the only thing I want from this is to be able to walk through the woods and hear the birds singing and that tore me up, that really tor me up cause he was just 18, nice, very nice man and stuff, but he did, he passed and that, oh gosh that tore me all to pieces. That was one of the things that really bothered me about, in nursing but you had to show and the family members were, they were somethin, some of em but you did have ones that are, were real real nice.

9 Q14 What were originally the most difficult aspect or your job? In the Nursing home, when I worked at the nursing home the worst aspect or difficult aspect was telling family members that their loved ones had passed or calling em and when you called them on the phone if they re not there you call em and you just tell em, you know, We need you back at the nursing home as quick as possible, and of course they'll ask you have they passed and all this stuff and you'll say, The doctor wants to see you here at the nursing home, or whatever and you can t tell em on the phone cause you'll get in trouble if you do with some of the doctors you will, some of the doctors will give you leeway to go ahead and tell em that their passed and some of em, if she s passed just call the funeral home you know and won t even come, that s, a lot of the times that's the way it happens in a lot of the nursing homes to this day this still happens which I hate, but anyhow that was one of the aspects. Another one was trying to please your doctors and one aspect of that is that you would call, I had one particular doctor in particular that you would call him and say Ms. so and so has an infection, How do you know she got an infection? Because her lab work came back and it says it, what would you suggest that I order? Uh, sir I'm not the doctor, you are. So I got into a discussion with one of the doctors uh he had ordered one of the medicines on this lady which was too, wasn't strong enough and I said, Sir, I said the last time you ordered, Keflex 500 milligrams I said to get her 250 I said well you know the last time 500 did work. Click. He hung up on me and so I went ahead and called the physician over the whole facility and he ordered it and then the doctor jumped on me about it and too sometimes you can't get the doctor on call and most of the time I had pretty good, communication between most of the doctors and if one of the other doctors was visiting some of their patients I d say this patient down in blah blah needs

10 such and such, he d say go ahead and order it, I said you better sign it. You sign this order before you leave here and they would get upset about that a lot of em. Your, director of nurses and stuff like that, they would work with you in the nursing home. In the hospital you're lucky if you can find the head nurse over the whole hospital to come and do anything and I had a confrontation with one of them and she had told me to go and get a defibrillator for one of the patients, so I did. I went and as a matter of fact I told her before I got em up out the bed I said, He's goin to pass out on us, You do what I tell you to do, so I went ahead and did it, she told me to go back and take the defibrillator back up to the Coronary Care Unit then she jumped on me and unfortunately she did it the wrong way, she jumped on me in front of someone, some of my colleagues so I got mad at her needless to say which I didn't do too often when I was in the hospital but anyhow I uh I jumped onto her and she came back to apologize and I wouldn't let her and it was quiet as a mouse the rest of my shift cause they'd never seen me you know verbally say anything so the next day she was there and she d come up to me and I said um one thing you did wrong was you fussed at me in front of some of my work colleagues, I said, when you came on I told you do not ever do that, if you want to talk to me, you take me off personally to myself and say something to me so after that it was fine. I didn't run into much problem after that. Q15 What is/was the most satisfying? I've been thinkin bout that one, uh when I worked in the nursing home and her sister (Sandy Hagler s sister, Cynthia) was directors of nurses at that time, she told me, she said Gene go into the dining room and get this patient so I did, I went in and she said take her back to her room

11 so I did, I said I'm gonna take you back to your room, she said, I'll slap you, I said, No, I don't think you will, and she just grinned. She was about 86 years old and after that she would make sure that I didn't have her as a patient but she would make sure that I was to be there that day to work, she would have her daughter to fix her hair and put her little makeup on and all this and shed kept hollering until I'd go back to see her and what she was wanting to do, she was wanting to go out on a date. She said, Where we goin tonight? I said, Well you know it's a little bit cool out there, we better not go out tonight. Well I mma throw this in there, most of the women on my hallway, I would pet them. None of the other nurses could hardly ever get anything out of em when I wasn't there, not that I was that good a nurse but I said well you know if I talk to em and be nice to em, maybe they will do what I want em to do. So they did and everything, I happened to have three ladies on my hallway, at the time that each one of them was married to a brother of the same family and one lady, she wanted to, she said do you like shrimp, popcorn shrimp, I said yeah, not supposed to eat it but anyhow, she had her son-inlaw, about 11 o clock at night to go out and get popcorn shrimp, she ate two of em and told me to eat the rest of em, I said, No no no no no I'm fine, she said, Take these, I said, OK. So I went ahead and took it then took it out and everybody eat it. But she was just the sweetest she could be you know, all of the ladies that I worked with I had another lady that thought she was going out on a date and all this stuff, that was a way I got em to take their medicines and do their exercises and stuff which was, that was very memorable to me, that really was. Q16 What advice would you give someone beginning this line of work? In nursing I would say get, go straight through, go get your LPN and go straight into your RN and

12 pursue your bachelors and if possible, it s alotta doin, but if possible get your doctorate in it. It is a good field to be in, it pays quite well now, specializing into different fields is more what they go into. Lot of em go into being physician s assistants, which is great but I like the nursing part of it cause you re right with the patients and stuff. It's very, it's a good field I should have went back into it after I left ASU but I didn't, got lazy Q17 Describe a memorable moment from work. Probably this would be, not in the nursing part of it, but at the college was when I retired after 37 years, they threw me a party and they were talking about how good I had done and blah blah blah and all this and some of the people that I didn't think I had that much influence on come to me and said Gene how did you stay 37 years and I said the main thing is doing your work and trying to stay out of trouble with your bosses or whatever, if they come and tell you to do certain things certain ways, you go ahead and do it and then use your judgement in how re you re going to get it done, they want you to do it their way, but sometimes their way don't work, you don't have time to do it the way they want you to do it. But they were real nice. Also when my mother passed they were so nice and friendly, they even took up a collection and brought it to me and they call every now and then and talk to me and blah blah blah and all this stuff but anyhow that was one of the most memorable parts of working at ASU which I worked in housekeeping there, that was real good.