Wow it's been a busy few weeks! I totally meant to update on my last clinical experience but I got so busy I forgot. I'll sum it all up in a few sentences: I love connecting with patients and hearing their stories. I had the sweetest 84 year old man who kept me laughing all day. My teacher schooled me on charting and assessing, both of which were sorely lacking, but I'm learning. It stressed me out, but I'll get there!
I started my new job last week at a local hospital. I LOVE IT! I'll be working PRN (as needed) in the Admissions office. I'm in training right now, but I can already tell I'll love the job. One thing I'm stressed about though- I thought I could work 3-7pm M-F, but unfortunately one class will last until 4:15 on M and clinical (at the same hospital) may go past 3pm as well. I'm really worried I'll end up being fired, but all of my friends assure me they'll work with me...but we'll see. I have a month or so to worry about THAT so right now I'll worry about...
FINALS
Yes finals. Final exam, final skills check off. BLAH. I also have an IV therapy check off coming up too. For final skills check off we won't know which skills we will have to perform until we get there..so we have to practice them all. Oy..my Easter break doesn't feel so much like an Easter break. I don't think I'll truly get a break until I graduate.
Did I mention I also have an online class thingy and a paper/project due too? Kill me now.
I've been volunteering at a local Victorian house museum for awhile and LOVE it! Some days it's the only thing that keeps me from getting so stressed I wind up in the crazy bin. There's a big annual Spring benefit coming up and come hell or highwater I will be there. I need fun in my life!
I've been bombarded today with the marriage equality issue that's going before SCOTUS. This is what I think
1- I'm not here to judge how other people live their lives. I need to concentrate on the plank in my eye instead of the speck in someone else's. He who is without sin cast the first stone kind of thing. (See I'm Catholic for 6 years and can still quote Scripture). I'm supposed to love people "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and its the "greatest commandment" (there I go again ;) )
2- As nurses, you're supposed to put your personal feelings aside and care for each person without prejudice. Everyone deserves equal treatment..the BEST treatment. The only way I can truly achieve that way of thinking is too use it in every aspect of my life.
3- Separation of church and state. God defined Christian marriage yes,,but sadly some people forget that not everyone in the good ole U.S. of A is Christian. They don't make me follow their religion, I won't make them follow mine Religious freedom is just what it says- religious freedom.
Anyway that's how my life has been lately! I'll try to update during Finals week. Until then I have homework to do, skills to practice and a paper to write. It never stops!
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Michelle Malone, S.N. B.C.H.S
The start of this trimester which marks the start of my junior year, I became obsessed with the fact that I now have initials. Of course, I've always had the MRM, but now I have the all important initials BEHIND my name. Those initials will stay there until I can replace them with Michelle Malone, R.N., B.S.N. Holy cheese on a cracker I can't wait until that day. I never really thought about graduation until this semester. Because I'm now in the last part of the program.I have 5 full trimesters left and then graduation, and then NCLEX and then LIFE! But I digress...
Today was my first clinical experience. Until now, it's been all mannequins, lab partners, and case studies. Today, I got to walk into a patients room and present myself as part of their healthcare team. If that doesn't make you want to puke, I'm not sure what will. I did survive today, as did my patients, so I stack that up in the win column. I wasn't ordered out of anyone's room or no one demanded to know why I deemed myself worthy to take care of them. All good things right?
We get to the hospital around 6:50 am and met in the lobby. The teachers said they'd split us into groups and send us on our merry way. I hissed to one of our lab instructors to put me in her group. She kind of laughed and said that they were already assigned. And of course, I got the dreaded teacher that everyone is afraid of. "WHY ME?" For a fleeting moment I thought about heading out the door and back to my car, but I managed to squash that feeling and follow the other 5 students and our teacher upstairs.
After a quick tour of the floor, we got settled into the conference room, and the teacher said she'd be back. She came back with our patient assignments. She starts spouting off all of these problems our patient had and I was having trouble keeping up. She also said he was 83 year old male on Cumadin. Wellll....that made me super nervous. For those that don't know, that's a "blood thinner" which basically mean his blood doesn't clot and bruising can be a real issue.We were dismissed and sent off to our patients' rooms. My partner and I both stopped short before going in. The teacher looked at us and said "Why do you look so scared? Just go!" and I said "Well I need a minute" and she said "You've been waiting to start clinicals for 2 years. Now you're here. Get to it!" We both looked at each other, I shrugged and knocked on his door. No turning back now...
Well long story short that patient went to surgery so there wasn't much we could do for him since he wanted to sleep. Our teacher sent us to bathe another patient who spoke little to no English (Chinese was his first language) and his wife spoke just a HAIR more English than he did. She was also very insistent that we do the bath HER way...and she proceeded to strip his gown off and leave him butt naked in the middle of the room. Poor guy...
My lessons for today:
1- You can never have too much coffee
2- Nurses never stop moving. So if you get mad when you or a loved one is in the hospital and the nurse "Takes too long" just know that she has anywhere from 4-6 more patients so she's tending to their needs too, not just hanging out at the nurses station as some people think
3- Wives whose husbands are in the hospital are dangerous people. They watch EVERY move you make.
4- Nurses HAVE to be flexible.
5- I really need sleep
6- Nursing school, especially clinicals, makes you very religious. God becomes your best friend (if he wasn't already)
We had a Blessing of the Hands ceremony today after clinicals which was nice. It really helped to remind us that we're called to nursing and that God is on our side.
We go back to the hospital next week, then another check off, then finals. THEN my "break" (in which I'm expected to study dosage and brush up on skills). Then Adult 1. Whew.
I start my job Monday at the same hospital that I have clinicals at. I'll be working a PRN (as needed) job in the Admissions office. I've tried, cried and prayed about finding a job at this hospital for YEARS so I'm super excited. Now I'm just praying that they'll be able to accomodate all of my crazy school schedule for the next year and a half.
And now I must collapse into bed. Because I feel like I'm moving on auto-pilot. Sometimes I wonder what I've gotten myself into...
Today was my first clinical experience. Until now, it's been all mannequins, lab partners, and case studies. Today, I got to walk into a patients room and present myself as part of their healthcare team. If that doesn't make you want to puke, I'm not sure what will. I did survive today, as did my patients, so I stack that up in the win column. I wasn't ordered out of anyone's room or no one demanded to know why I deemed myself worthy to take care of them. All good things right?
We get to the hospital around 6:50 am and met in the lobby. The teachers said they'd split us into groups and send us on our merry way. I hissed to one of our lab instructors to put me in her group. She kind of laughed and said that they were already assigned. And of course, I got the dreaded teacher that everyone is afraid of. "WHY ME?" For a fleeting moment I thought about heading out the door and back to my car, but I managed to squash that feeling and follow the other 5 students and our teacher upstairs.
After a quick tour of the floor, we got settled into the conference room, and the teacher said she'd be back. She came back with our patient assignments. She starts spouting off all of these problems our patient had and I was having trouble keeping up. She also said he was 83 year old male on Cumadin. Wellll....that made me super nervous. For those that don't know, that's a "blood thinner" which basically mean his blood doesn't clot and bruising can be a real issue.We were dismissed and sent off to our patients' rooms. My partner and I both stopped short before going in. The teacher looked at us and said "Why do you look so scared? Just go!" and I said "Well I need a minute" and she said "You've been waiting to start clinicals for 2 years. Now you're here. Get to it!" We both looked at each other, I shrugged and knocked on his door. No turning back now...
Well long story short that patient went to surgery so there wasn't much we could do for him since he wanted to sleep. Our teacher sent us to bathe another patient who spoke little to no English (Chinese was his first language) and his wife spoke just a HAIR more English than he did. She was also very insistent that we do the bath HER way...and she proceeded to strip his gown off and leave him butt naked in the middle of the room. Poor guy...
My lessons for today:
1- You can never have too much coffee
2- Nurses never stop moving. So if you get mad when you or a loved one is in the hospital and the nurse "Takes too long" just know that she has anywhere from 4-6 more patients so she's tending to their needs too, not just hanging out at the nurses station as some people think
3- Wives whose husbands are in the hospital are dangerous people. They watch EVERY move you make.
4- Nurses HAVE to be flexible.
5- I really need sleep
6- Nursing school, especially clinicals, makes you very religious. God becomes your best friend (if he wasn't already)
We had a Blessing of the Hands ceremony today after clinicals which was nice. It really helped to remind us that we're called to nursing and that God is on our side.
We go back to the hospital next week, then another check off, then finals. THEN my "break" (in which I'm expected to study dosage and brush up on skills). Then Adult 1. Whew.
I start my job Monday at the same hospital that I have clinicals at. I'll be working a PRN (as needed) job in the Admissions office. I've tried, cried and prayed about finding a job at this hospital for YEARS so I'm super excited. Now I'm just praying that they'll be able to accomodate all of my crazy school schedule for the next year and a half.
And now I must collapse into bed. Because I feel like I'm moving on auto-pilot. Sometimes I wonder what I've gotten myself into...
Saturday, March 9, 2013
As promised!
Here's a little update into what's going on in my world right now:
I mean really. Everyone (who's not a classmate) keeps saying ," It'll be worth it one day" Yeah I know..but that one day is a long ways away. Until then, I will continue to moan and groan and complain and cry and scream my way through clinicals.
I actually can't believe my first clinical is Thursday. I feel like I've been in school forever. I almost laugh when I remember how hard I thought it was....I look back on that girl and just want to pat her on the head and say "You're so cute." I seriously had no idea what I was in for. I had my usual freak out at the beginning of the semester and failed a couple of things (not miserably but I still failed). Then I decided that a) I can only repeat so many classes before I'm booted out of the program and I'll be damned if it's the first class in the clinical program and b) it was put up or shut up time. So I did manage to pull my grade up to about an 80 which is a high C...just need to keep it there through finals!
We went to the hospital for training on the chart system that the hospital uses. Of course they'll be switching to a new system in a year so I'll have to learn that one too (great). I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that we were caring for real, live people soon. I even said, "Their not plastic anymore. They're real!" I was thinking I was the only person in the world to feel like that, except I found a nursing student blog on the internet and she said almost the exact same thing. WHEW! Maybe I'm not crazy after all!
Well, I'll wrap it up here. I have a few book assignments for another class to do, a research paper, plus I have final skills checkoff, final exams and clinicals to prepare for. I did FINALLY get a job at the hospital I'll be having clinicals at in the admissions office. I start that next week so I'm super excited!
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| Yep. |
I actually can't believe my first clinical is Thursday. I feel like I've been in school forever. I almost laugh when I remember how hard I thought it was....I look back on that girl and just want to pat her on the head and say "You're so cute." I seriously had no idea what I was in for. I had my usual freak out at the beginning of the semester and failed a couple of things (not miserably but I still failed). Then I decided that a) I can only repeat so many classes before I'm booted out of the program and I'll be damned if it's the first class in the clinical program and b) it was put up or shut up time. So I did manage to pull my grade up to about an 80 which is a high C...just need to keep it there through finals!
We went to the hospital for training on the chart system that the hospital uses. Of course they'll be switching to a new system in a year so I'll have to learn that one too (great). I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that we were caring for real, live people soon. I even said, "Their not plastic anymore. They're real!" I was thinking I was the only person in the world to feel like that, except I found a nursing student blog on the internet and she said almost the exact same thing. WHEW! Maybe I'm not crazy after all!
Well, I'll wrap it up here. I have a few book assignments for another class to do, a research paper, plus I have final skills checkoff, final exams and clinicals to prepare for. I did FINALLY get a job at the hospital I'll be having clinicals at in the admissions office. I start that next week so I'm super excited!
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