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Show 4 jr-" .-V. 1 ": v -; ' 'I ' Nurse Marion Loesch, left, and Lakeview Admisistrator William P. Moore present silver . serving tray to nurse Ada Stewart on her retirement at age 71. "There were a lot of changes in nursing techniques during the past two decades," she told a group of well-wishers well-wishers last week, i Retiring Lakeview nurse says much Ms changed By GARY R. BLODGETT FARMINGTON - Many things, from scrubbing bed pans to administering admin-istering medication, have changed in. nursing over the' past two de- -cades, according to Ada Stewart registered nurse who retired from Lakeview Hospital last week. "We do a lot of things differently now than IS or 20 years ago," she said. "Some of the things we did then, we wouldn't think of doing now." Reusing injection needles, for ' example, was a common practice used in some of the hospitals, she noted. Stainless steel bedpans had ' to be. scrubbed, "shakedown" in-' in-' stead of digital thermometers were used, nurses prepared medical do- sages for patients, and even the nur- se ature was different then. -- ' ;'My,-53, how things have changed," said Ada, who was honored hon-ored at a farewell party in the hospital hospi-tal reception room. "There have been a lot of changes - but they have all been for the betterment of the patients." . Ada put off her nursing career until she was 49 years old and had raised her family. She retired last Tuesday at age 7L "Many of the nurses' duties a decade or two ago have been taken over by aides doing housekeeping jobs," she said. "Also, many of the reuseable items such as bedpans, injection in-jection needles, IV bottles, etc., are now made of plastic and are either discarded or much easier to clean." Of the many changes, use of the digital thermometer pleases Ada more than anything else. "I didn't realize how much I hated the old shakedown thermometer until I used the digital thermometer which is so much faster and easier to use," said Ada. She praised the updated techniques techni-ques used in hospitals which provide pro-vide more restrictions and better care for patients. "There's no comparison com-parison between nursing services offered today with services offered 10 or 20 years go." Ada began nursing in the original South Davis Community Hospital in 1972 and transferred to Lakeview Hospital when it opened in September Septem-ber 1976. , She said she became interested in nursing at age 49 when her daughter served as a nurse's aide while going to college. "She told me of the gratifying experiences she had as a nurse's aide so I decided to go to college and become a nurse," she said. "I graduated from Weber State College's Col-lege's School of Nursing and was first hired at the old St Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City." She later did nursing at the Salt Lake Veterans' Hospital and at hospitals in Michigan and California Califor-nia before returning to Bountiful. She1 said she spent three months as an exchange nurse working in Saudi Arabia, representing the former for-mer Hospital Corporation of America Amer-ica International. "That was a unique experience to add to my many wonderful nursing experiences experi-ences of the past 22 years," she concluded. |