girl in greenwood

My last day of clinical for this quarter is over! I am amazed at how much I learned in 7 short weeks. Here's a short list of skills I did (on real patients!) for the first time: change a dressing on a surgical wound, remove a drain from a surgical site, give a subcutaneous injection, give an intramuscular injection, pass meds (I had sort of done this at one of my assisted living jobs, but it's totally different when a) your instructor is watching and b) you're using a Pyxsis for the first time), administer meds through a G-tube, flush a G-tube, help position a patient for a surgical procedure (I guess you'd call it surgical when the surgeon comes in and draws a whole lotta fluid off a patient's knee, right?), assisted with physical therapy, held a basin for a man who was vomiting (and thank goodness, did not vomit myself!), learned how to put on and use sequential compression devices (aka leg squeezers to the patients), removed a couple of Foley catheters, emptied Foley bags, learned about nagging patients to use incentive spirometers after surgery, learned all about taking care of patients in isolation with nasty infections, and to wrap things up, found out on my last day that I may have been exposed to tuberculosis. It was pretty awesome.

One of classmates had a whole string of crazy experiences this quarter, culminating with yesterday's excitement, wherein he was attempting to put in his first Foley catheter in a woman of considerable size (this is very challenging) and just as he inserted it, she had a grand mal seizure. Holy cow. I saw the whole thing, but I was just there as an observer. Poor D* is probably going to have a complex about putting in catheters for the rest of his life.

All I've got left to finish up to be done with second quarter is 1 quiz, 1 test, 1 skills lab, 1 set of careplans and logs, and 1 final exam. Then it will be time for Christmas!

Labels: nursing school