girl in greenwood

I can't believe it, but I'm already halfway done with hands-on clinical for the quarter. I've finished my rotation on the telemetry unit and next week I'll move to an orthopedics/trauma unit. I've heard there are some fascinating cases on that floor!

Today I feel like I've been run over by a truck. I think I just hit a wall by the end of clinical last night. I was actually on the floor until 11:00 - no wonder I'm exhausted. This was actually week three of clinicals... the first week I shadowed a nurse and nominally had one patient to care for, except that my patient was just on the tele unit for observation and didn't need any nursing. I helped my nurse with some routine stuff, but mostly stood around and stared. The next week, I was assigned to one patient and took care of him myself. He was really sick - I was extremely nervous. But it went really well, and I got excellent feedback from my nurses and my instructor. I also made a connection with patient's family, which was pretty cool. This week, we had to ramp up to two patients. When I arrived on Wednesday, one of the patients that I had written my pre-plan for was gone to another unit. Drat! So I had to get a new patient and try to figure out what was going on with her and try to keep track of my other patient as well. I felt like I did a horrible job managing my time because I ended up delegating the other patient to the staff nurse. But last night, I was much better prepared and the whole evening went like clockwork. I successfully took care of both of my patients, gave meds on time, had time to go get some dinner and rest for a little while, and would've finished my charting before it was time to go... except that one of the night nurses asked if I wanted to start an IV! And I totally wanted to.

I was scared to death about actually STICKING A NEEDLE IN SOMEONE'S VEIN. But my instructor walked me through it step by step, my closest classmate acted as my scrub nurse (she filled her pockets with all the supplies I'd need and lots of extras just in case!), and the patient was the most cheerful, adorable guy in the world. He was an adult but developmentally delayed, and just chattered away happily the whole time we were preparing. When my teacher showed up, he said "Is this the first time you're doing this?" and I said yes, but that my teacher would help me, so he didn't need to worry... and he said, "Are you nervous?" Cracked me up. I admitted that I was a little nervous, but that I trusted my teacher and that we would take good care of him. Hilariously, he started singing "Like a Virgin," which really almost killed my instructor. And it went like a textbook procedure, which was nice for everyone involved. After we'd finished and cleaned everything up and gotten the patient settled, he called me back to the bedside... and when I walked back over, he held up his hand to high-five me. Cutest thing ever. I wanted to fold him up and put him in my pocket to take him home.

So yeah. Two more weeks at the Big County Hospital. And then I'll have the three different observation rotations, which happen earlier in the day instead of in the evenings like the hands-on clinicals. That means I'll actually be able to see R* while we're both awake, what a novelty!

Labels: nursing school