One more semester down, more lessons learned.

At the end of last semester I had an entry titled "Two down, three to go!" and now at the end of this semester I am excited to say that I only have TWO to go! This semester has absolutely flown by. I've also gotten much closer to some of my nursing friends and I can see this shift away from sorority sisters and towards nursing friends happening all the time. I'm really happy with the way my friendships are growing and changing lately, and it's so nice to be past that halfway point and to now be able to say that once this semester starts I will only have ONE left to go. Awesome.


I really enjoyed this semester. I liked both of my clinical rotations and instructors a lot. My instructor at Saint Mary's was great. Amy was young and had graduated from Grand Valley's nursing program, so she understood what we were going through. She also worked at Saint Mary's on the floor that we were on so she knew the ins and outs of the floor and she knew all the nurses. This was great because she was able to match us with nurses that would be good with students. She really made the rotation fun and comfortable and she helped us through everything without ever getting too frustrated with us :) My instructor at Ferguson, my mental health rotation, was Dave. He forced us out of our comfort zones and forced at to look at ourselves in a much harsher light in order to see our biases and our stereotypes. Because of him I was able to learn more about mental health than I ever thought would be possible from this rotation. He also taught me more about communication than I have ever learned from any other instructor or any other class. By learning to communicate with people with mental illness I can now feel much more comfortable talking to any patient that I will have in the future. I loved my experience at Ferguson, which is funny because at the beginning of the semester I thought I would HATE it. Funny how things change.

MY theory class was my only final this semester, which is funny to me too because I remember having 4 or 5 finals and freaking out and studying for weeks. Then I remember crying after my finals because I was sure I had failed and was NEVER going to get into nursing school. So needless to say, it's great to be where I am now. I didn't do as well on my final as I wanted so I'm still a little mad at myself for that because I only needed to get 2 more questions right to have gotten an A- instead of a B+ but hey, I guess I will get over it. And 351 is just credit/no credit so I'm good there :) I'm excited to move onto Nursing 420 and I will update more about that when I get there!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Final thoughts on Ferguson!

Last week was my last week at Ferguson. It was really interesting to see the way that the residents reacted to us leaving. Some of the residents got SUPER clingy during the last week and wanted to be with us the whole day, others didn't want to even come down to see us because they didn't want to say good-bye. A few of them were really upset that we were leaving and one even cried because she didn't want us to go. It was definitely an experience to see all of the different reactions and learn how to respond to them. After our last clinical we went out for lunch with our instructor and then we headed to the CHS building to listen to our instructor present his master's presentation. It was really great because after he was done, the master's committee asked us how we felt about the clincal we had, since he was talking about it. We got to all talk and pretty much help to defend his presentation and it was just really cool. We all made him cry :)

So for clinical every week we write a journal entry answering questions about how the week went, so I felt a good way to sum up my time at Ferguson would be to just post some of my responses from my final journal entry. I know they are kind of long but I want to have them on here to look back on, plus I think they are a good view of what I learned. ALSO I made a paper chain to count down until GRADUATION! Only 243 days left!

1. What do you see as the role of the nurse in this clinical area (Either Psych/Mental Health in general OR a community setting like this…or both)?

The role of the nurse in this clinical area is one that is very widespread and varied, meaning that the nurse has many roles. The nurse is an observer. She must be aware of all of the things going on with those that she is caring for, and she must watch closely in order to assess for changes in physical health or mental status. It seems that through working with the same people repeatedly and for a long period of time, the nurse can actually learn the patient’s patterns and behaviors and predict when they are going to have problems. The nurse also needs to be an advocate. By observing what is happening with those that she is caring for, the nurse can then advocate for the things that they need. In the hospital setting this may be safety precautions, medication changes or a sitter. And in the community this may be finding a new case worker, helping with insurance or disability coverage, or advocating for the patient to be placed in a hospital or rehab center. The nurse can also be a trust worthy person in the lives of the people that she cares for. Many mental health patients are in need of someone to talk to and someone to trust, and nurses can be that person for their patients. One other important role of the nurse is an educator. The nurse can help work with mental health patients to help them to understand their conditions and work towards managing it. The nurse can help the patient to find things that may trigger an episode and find things that may help them to feel safer or more content. The nurse has so many important roles in this clinical area and these few are just a sample of them.


6. Please list what you feel your strengths are in Psych/Mental Health nursing. Please list areas related to this clinical specialty where you think you need to continue to grow and learn.

I feel that I have several strengths in Psych/Mental Health nursing. I feel that I have a good ability to connect with people in a short period of time. I have been told by several of my nursing faculty that this is something that I’m good at, and I feel that I have seen that a lot in this rotation. Often I only have a few minutes to talk with a resident and I feel that in that short time I do a pretty good job of connecting with them and developing a quick relationship that makes them feel a little more comfortable. I also feel that my communication skills are good. In this rotation these skills have improved drastically, and I think that I do a good job at feeling comfortable talking to the residents and making them feel comfortable as well. I am not intimidated to approach many of the residents and I am able to carry on conversations well. I also think that I have strength in being a good listener. Many residents simply need someone to talk to, and someone who can listen and understand what they are feeling. That has been one of our biggest roles at Ferguson, and I feel that I am good at being a listener without self-disclosing or offering my advice when it is not needed.

That being said, there are still areas that I need to improve upon. Though my communication skills are improving all the time, I still have a great deal more to learn. I still have a lot to learn about communicating with people who are hallucinating and with people who are schizophrenic. I also still need to learn more about communicating with people who are depressed or suicidal. There is still a lot of work that I need to do to work on these skills. I am trying to work on not being judgmental but there is still a definite need for improvement there as well. I also need to continue to learn more about mental illness. There is still so much that I don’t know about many mental health conditions and as I learn more about them I will be able to better understand my patients and the things that they are going through.

7. What did you learn during this clinical rotation? What did you learn that you didn’t expect to learn?

I have learned so much more from this clinical than I could have ever expected. I have learned so much about myself and about the biases that I held that I didn’t even know about. I expected to learn a lot about mental illness and about people with mental illness, but I didn’t expect to learn as much as I did about myself. The more I learn about the residents at Ferguson the more I feel my own stereotypes being broken down. I have learned that so many of these people have come to be homeless because of situations that are truly out of their control. They did not become homeless because they are lazy or stupid, or because they were too drunk to get a job. Many of them are homeless because they are mental ill or because they were abandoned by family and friends and couldn’t take care of themselves. Knowing their stories has completely changed the way that I will view homeless people for the rest of my life and will absolutely affect my clinical practice. I have also learned that these people are not very different from me. They all have the need to be cared for and cared about. They have feelings and emotions. They worry about the same things that I worry about, and they are upset by the same things too. They may feel or express these emotions in ways very different from my, but the feelings are the same. Treating these patients like they are different or outcasts is not the way to best help them, they need to same things that any other patient needs, maybe just in a different way. I have also learned that there are so many things that these residents need in order to function on a day to day basis. They need the help of doctors, case managers and social workers in many instances, to help them with all of the things that they need. I didn’t know that there were even that many resources available for people with mental illness, and knowing this will definitely help me to find places like these anywhere that I am practicing.

Giving thanks

This week we only had class on Monday and Tuesday because we have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving, which was WONDERFUL. It was so nice to not have clinical this week and be able to take a break and relax. We had our third exam on Monday so it was kind of stressful to study for that but Cheryl and I tried to be really pro-active and study throughout the week so we didn't have to cram the day of the exam. But don't get me wrong, I still crammed the day of the exam. Totally paid off though, got a 94%. Happy Thanksgiving to me :)

On that note, this week has made me (along with the rest of the country) think about all of things that I am thankful for in my life. On the subject of nursing/school there are so many things that I am thankful for. First of all I am thankful for the opportunity that I have to even be in college. There are so few people, and even fewer women, around the world that have the opportunity to go to college at all, let along go to college for five years. I am also thankful for my grandparents and aunt, who have all passed away but provided me with enough money to help pay for a substantial amount of my first few years of college. Without their help, paying for college would have much more of a burden on myself and parents and I am so grateful for them. Which brings me to my parents, who have been constantly supportive both emotionally and financially. My parents have helped me to not have to stress about money throughout my time in college, and they have been supportive when I thought I wouldn't make it in nursing, and when I told them it was going to take me five years to graduate. They have always been there to tell me I could do it and that things were going to work out. They are always interested in what I am doing and just generally always there for me. I am so so grateful for everything that they do for me. I am also thankful that I am going into nursing because it gives me the opportunity to touch the lives of the people I care for. I think that being a nurse is the greatest job in the world because we get to be there for people when they desperately need someone to be there for them. I can't wait to graduate and be a real nurse. The nursing program at Grand Valley, though frustrating at times, is amazing and wonderful and provides us with so many great opportunities to grow and learn and get real world experience. The final thing that I am thankful for is my FRIENDS in the nursing program. The people that I have met in the past 11 months are so incredible and have become such a huge part of my life. They are all just genuinely kind and nice people and I am so blessed to have met them and have them in my life. I am so thankful that I have gotten to know them and that they are there for me when I need them.

Moral of the story, I am so lucky to be where I am right now. There were so many times when I never thought that I would make it into the nursing program and thought I would never be able to become a nurse. Now that I am here I feel so blessed that I have made it this far and that in less than nine months I will graduate and be able to finally be a nurse. I am so thankful for all of the people that have helped me to get to this point (my bestie/roommate Courtney for putting up with my crying and frustration for two years) and I am thankful now for all of the people helping me along this journey. So thank you thank you thank you to everyone, I love you all.

Phase 10-ed OUT.

At the of last week I was feeling pretty renewed and excited about being at Ferguson for two more weeks, but after this week I'm feeling much more ready to be done. It's not that I am not enjoying getting to know more about people, it's more so that we only spend time with the SAME 8-10 people every single day. I am just getting sick of sitting around and playing card games all day. And sometimes there are only one or two residents down in the conference room so most of us just sit and play card games with each other. I know there are still things that I am learning, but I just wish we were able to meet more residents and get to know new people. Some days I literally play 3-4 hours of Phase Ten, which, though it's my favorite game, I can only play so many hours of it before I start to go crazy. Especially when I play it with a resident who takes 5 minutes for each turn and also can't hear what's going on. It makes me a little nuts. So I'm at the point now where I'm about ready to move on to something new, so I'm glad we only have one more week left. I think I'm also just ready to be done with this semester, which is how I always feel when we are nearing the end. I have really enjoyed my time at Ferguson though and I definitely have learned SO much about working with and communicating with people who are mentally ill and I have seen my biases and opinions change so much in the past five weeks that it amazes even me. It's funny how you don't realize how many stereotypes and biases you have until you are actually forced to confront them. Honestly, spending time at Ferguson should required to graduate from the nursing problem, because it will forever change the way you will look at people with mental illness. It's unbelievable how much I have changed my outlook.

In other news, we have our third exam next week so I'm trying to actually be productive and study for it ahead of time. A group of us from class got together on Tuesday to start studying for it, and then Cheryl and I went out for breakfast this morning and studied for about an hour and a half so I'm feeling like I'm already ahead of the game since usually I don't start studying until the day of the exam...Haha so hopefully I will do well on it. AND we only have two days of class next week and then we are off Wednesday-Friday for Thanksgiving break! Then only two weeks and one final until the end of the semester. I can't believe how fast it's going :)

Group Therapy

If you haven't figured out by now, instead of trying to focus on the mundane details of everything I do all week, I'm trying to pick out the most significant things and talk about those. I'm doing this because I feel like by picking out the most important things I will end up with a more genuine blog to look back on at the end of this nursing shenanigan.

So that being said, this week we had seminar for the first time in well over a month. The topic of this seminar was "Mental Health Topics," so we didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be a seminar about therapeutic communication, which is something we actually talk about every day in my clinical rotation. Therapeutic communication in a nutshell, is when you have a conversation with someone with the intent of digging deeper and finding out how they are feeling. It is not focused on you, you don't use any self-disclosure, and you focus on how they are feeling and ask questions to learn more. So we talked a little about therapeutic communication and then our instructor asked for a volunteer to come up and help her demonstrate what we would be doing later when we broke up into groups to practice. One student volunteered, and though we had scenarios that we could choose to use, she chose to talk about her real life (another option she told us we could use). Within a minute or so or her talking, we realized that she was genuinely having problems in her life and she got really emotional in front of the whole class. The instructor kept going with the demonstration and at the end, the entire class was absolutely silent. So then we broke up into groups and took turns being the nurse and the patient. Since the student who had gone up in front of the class was in my group, I felt that it was only fair that all talk about real life when it was our turn to be the patient. So we did. Megan and Cheryl were the other two people in my group (two of my best nursing friends), so it was pretty easy to just talk to them. It was such an awesome day though. All of us got to talk about our stuff that was going on, and it made it much easier to have a genuine therapeutic conversation. I love group therapy so it was great :) It's so amazing how these people that I didn't even know a year ago have become some of the people I relate to the most and have come to trust more than a lot of people in my life. Love them.

Sticking with talking about therapeutic communication, we talk with residents in Ferguson all day during clinical. Most of these people have really serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, OCD, etc., and they have a lot of issues and problems in their lives. Over several years of students coming in, they have learned that the students are "safe" and therefore they tend to cling to us and want to talk with us about the things they are feeling or the things that are going on in their lives. So we spend all day trying to use the things we have learned about therapeutic communication to help them to feel better, and help us dig deeper into what they are feeling. It's really interesting as we are starting to learn more about them both from figuring it out on our own, and by talking with our instructor during post-conference. Some of them have just had such hard lives. Being abandoned by friends, parents, siblings, spending time in jail, spending time in rehab, being hospitalized frequently, and so many other things. It's been such an incredible learning experience to spend time getting to know these people and learning so much about their lives. Earlier this week I was sort of feeling like I was getting bored with clinical and not really getting anything more out of it, but now I've sort of had a renewed sense of wanting to learn more from the residents. Which is good because I still have two more weeks there :)

Friends for Life ♥

In my first blog entry I talked about how I already felt like I was making friends that I would stay friends with for the rest of my time in the nursing program, and as it turns out I was right. I have met so many people in the nursing program that have honestly turned into my family over these past ten months. When you spend as much time with people as we spend with each other, it would be impossible to not get close. So my friend Jenna decided that the group of us that it really close should all get together and take a Christmas card picture of our "Nursing Family." I am in love with the pictures. And these people. They really do get me through the program, keep me on track and keep me sane. I can't imagine what my life is going to be like in ten more months when we all go our separate ways. Jenna was also the one that on our very first day of lab in Nursing 315 asked us if we thought we were all going to be friends for life. At the time we all thought that she was crazy, but now I wonder if we really will all stay friends down the road. I am so lucky to have met so many amazing people that have become some of my best friends. It's cheesy, I know. But if you look at the pictures you should understand that we are just really cheesy kind of people :)

Also, clinical was really uneventful this week and we only had one day! I got my clinical placements for next semester and I am at Helen Devos Children's Hospital 9C for my pediatrics rotation and back at St. Mary's on 3 Lacks (which is BRAND NEW and not even open yet) for my second Med-Surg rotation. I will update more on those next semester though.

BINGO!

As I said at the end of my last post, I had my second exam on Monday. I really didn't study at all the entire weekend before the exam because I went home on Wednesday because I didn't have clinical. So I was freaking out, and only studied the day of the exam for about 5 hours with some friends from my class. As it turns out, the multiple choice Gods were on my side on Monday because I ended up getting a 94%. Awesome. That totally made my day. Even though I was "that guy" that everyone hated because I did that well without studying...

Tuesday I had my second LEI visit with my elderly client, which went well. Then I had theory and we talked about mood disorders like depression, bipolar, and suicide. It was pretty interesting since a lot of the residents at Ferguson have these issues.

As usual, the most exciting part of my week is clinical, which was Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday was fairly uneventful. We hadn't been there the week before, some of the residents were really excited to see us and were eager to hang out. Another student and I walked with one of the residents to get coffee in the morning, then came back and played cards and hung out. In the afternoon I went for another walk with a resident to the grocery store. At the end of the day I worked at the "Lucky Bucks" store in the apartment building. This store has necessities like toilet paper, paper towel, soap, shampoo, combs, razors, towels, sheets, etc. The residents earn "lucky bucks" by having good room inspections, helping with chores, volunteering with projects, etc. They can then use this money to buy the things that they need. It was very interesting to see how excited the residents are to get into the store and see if there are any new things (sometimes they get things donated), and how happy they are to just get the necessities that they need.

Thursday was a really fun day. In the morning I learned how to play dominoes, which is surprisingly harder than I had previously thought. The guys that were teaching us were SUPER into dominoes and were really funny about teaching us. It was a lot of fun learning though, and by the end I was beating all of them :) It's hard to win sometimes though because some of the residents take these games very seriously and don't take it well when they lose. We also played BINGO on Thursday with the residents, which was also an experience. We had probably 15 or 20 residents that came to play, so we were happy about that. A few of the girls had gone out that morning to buy BINGO prizes for the games. They bought things like gloves, hats, toilet paper, soap, deodorant, body wash and more. So then we started playing BINGO, and with each person that won, there were 10 other people that got upset about it. We heard every reason under the sun that they were losing. We were rigging the game, we wanted them to lose, we were playing favorites, the balls weren't mixed up, people were cheating, they had unlucky cards... you get the point. Paranoid schizophrenics are not the greatest BINGO players, but they all still enjoyed it and had a good time. We all had a good time also, and it made the day go by really quickly. All in all a pretty good week! Just busy since this week I also babysat 4 days and worked at the Children's Center! Looking forward to the weekend! :)

Half way!!

So as the title implies, this week marked being half way done with not only the semester but also exactly half way done with the NURSING PROGRAM! The program is five semesters long and we are currently 2.5 semesters into it. I can't believe how fast it's going and it's so nice to think that we are kind of in the downhill half of it now :)

This week was only a two-day week for me because my group started clinical last week while everyone else had the week off, so we got this week off instead! Monday we had a skills practice day in lab for the entire three hours to practice for our final test-out that was on Tuesday. The test-out was over either NG tube insertion (a nasogastric tube that is inserted through the nose into the stomach for decompression/suction or feeding) or central line dressing change (easier than NG tube insertion BUT has to be a sterile procedure which is harder). We had to be ready for either of the tests and the instructor picked which one we had to do. I really hate this nerve-racking-don't-know-what-you-are-going-to-have-to-do test-out crap. That being said, I did the central line dressing change and everything went fine, and I passed. The picture is of all of the things that are found in the kit for the dressing change. Bonus: Tuesday was our last day of lab for the semester, and now I only have theory class on Mondays and Tuesdays, which is awesome because I can sleep in :) BOOM.

The bad news is that we have our second theory exam on Monday and I have ZERO motivation to study for it. Blah.

Ferguson Fun :)

I apologize for the three cheesy rhyming titles in a row, I'm not sure where these are coming from. None the less, this week was my first week of my new clinical: Mental health. Going into this rotation I was NOT excited about it. I already had the idea that mental health was definitely not in my options of things that I would ever want to do. So I admit I had a negative attitude about starting this clinical. Also we are in an apartment building that doesn't have any nurses, so I wasn't seeing how nursing was going to fit into this place. I had heard that the majority of this rotation was just talking to residents, playing cards and hanging out, which sounded like fun but I didn't think I was going to get anything out of it. I also was feeling very nervous about talking with the residents, since most of them do have a mental illness. After three days I have a totally different opinion of this clinical and the things that I am going to learn from it.

First I guess i'll give a little overview of my clinical site. Ferguson Apartments is a building with 101 single-resident apartments. The building used to be a hotel until it went out of business and was purchased to be used as a place for the homeless to live. There is a whole lot of interesting history of how the apartments came to be, but I will spare you the details. In order to live at Ferguson the residents have to have a disability (either physically or mentally) and be otherwise homeless. The majority of the residents there, probably 75%, have mental disabilities, and even many of those with physical disabilities also have some kind of mental problems. So on Wednesday we met our clinical instructor and got an introduction to Ferguson and all of our assignments, started learning about some mental illnesses, and other fun things. Then we went out and met some of the residents. We sat in their big conference room and played cards, games, riddles, etc, and just talked with them. It was uncomfortable at first, but as the day went on and we started getting to know them it got better. It was very "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" because it was raining and we were in this big room with a skylight, while residents were wandering in the lobby, some having conversations with themselves.

Thursday we went on a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood near Ferguson to find resources that the residents can use. Some of the places were Good Will, soup kitchens, missions, shelters, grocery stores, the library and more. One of the residents came with us to show us around. It was awesome to see all of the resources that are available for those who are homeless, struggling with drugs and alcohol, or just need help. A couple of us took a tour around Mel Trotter, which is a shelter and program for people with drug and alcohol problems. They can house up to 180 men each night. It's an incredible place and it was amazing to see all of the things that they do. Later in the day we took another walk, with a resident who took us around downtown and told us about his life being in and out of jail, losing his family, and ultimately ending up homeless on the streets of Grand Rapids and how he ended up in Ferguson. It was so interesting to hear him talk about all that he has been through and how happy he was to have a home. We went to see the Fishladder, which is something I will probably take anyone who comes to visit me to see. Also the walk made me realize how absolutely beautiful Grand Rapids is. We also took the picture of us in the giant button :)

Friday we went bowling with the residents! We took the bus to the bowling alley and bowled a few games with them. There were I think 7 residents that came with us. It was so much fun to spend time with them. We had two students and two residents on each lane so we got to really get to know the people that we were on a lane with. Most of the residents that we are spending time we with have schizophrenia and many of them have a variety of issues that go along with that. But I'll tell you, they are changing so many of the stereotypes that I have about mentally ill people, and I now have no doubt that I will probably learn more here than I ever thought I would.

So long Saint Mary's

Yesterday was our last day at the Lack's Cancer Center at Saint Mary's Hospital. We just got to take a half day and only one patient for the day, then we all went out to lunch together to celebrate the end of our rotation. I really enjoyed my time at Lack's. The nurses there were absolutely amazing. They were so helpful and so willing to teach us. They really made it a wonderful experience. I also really loved my clinical group this semester. There were four people in this clinical that I was close with from my NUR 315 lab and a few people that I didn't know at all. But we all had a good time together over the past 6 weeks. (Please see the cheesy pics).

I can't believe that the first six weeks of the semester are already gone. This semester is absolutely flying by faster than I think any other semester has. Next week I already jump right back into clinical and start my mental health rotation. I am at Ferugson Apartments, which is an apartment building/home from people with mental disabilities. I don't know a whole lot about it, but I will update once I know more. I start there on Wednesday and will be there from 8-4 on Wednesdays and Thursdays. It will be super great to sleep in until 6:30 or 7 in the mornings :)

Since I didn't have clinical today I volunteered at a flu vaccine clinic in Allendale. There were 12 students there and we have over 200 flu shots! The shots were free to faculty/staff and their dependents, spouses, etc, so a lot of people came. I feel much better about giving injections though, since I gave probably 30 of them today. It was pretty cool though, I liked talking with people and I actually like giving the shots. Is it weird that I think it's fun? Probably yes.

Surgery Shenanigans

As part of our rotation at Saint Mary's we get to spend two days in the operating room. This is awesome because Spectrum Health (The health care system that dominates the entire city of Grand Rapids) students aren't allowed to go into the operating room at all, so being at St. Mary's was a huge plus for us. For one of the days we are assigned to a specific operating room nurse. The nurse stays with one surgeon in one OR and we stay with them for the whole day and see all of the surgeries that they do. The other day we are assigned to a specific patient and we follow them from the pre-op area, into surgery and int the recovery after. This is a really great opportunity for us to not only see a couple different surgeries, but it is also a great way for us to see the many different roles that nurses have in the surgical process.

My first day was Wednesday and I was assigned to a nurse that I stayed with for the whole day. The operating room I was in was a neurological surgeon and he was doing three different lumbar (low back) surgeries during the time I was going to be in the room. I got to get changed into my sweet surgical attire, scrubs, mask, hair cover, etc, and then I got to find my nurse and start following her around. We went out to the Pre-op holding area and checked all of the paperwork and met the patient and the patient's family. After asking and answering some questions we brought the patient down to the OR. In the OR the anesthesiologist was waiting to put the patient to sleep, but I won't go into the mundane details of surgery. Basically, surgery was awesome. The surgeon, physician's assistant and surgical tech were all really great. Surgery is basically like a party. There is an IPod playing and everyone rocks out while they are doing surgery. It's epic. Everyone in the OR was really great and explained what they were doing and let me see what what was going on. They were also testing my knowledge of who sang all of the songs on the IPOD. AND I got to throw in my favorite Lady Gaga joke (How do you wake up Lady Gaga? Poke her face). It's funny, I know. I had SO much fun in surgery and I really did get to learn so much about the actual surgery as well as how the OR works and what the nurse does in the operating room. After Wednesday I was sold on possibly being a surgical nurse, but I wasn't really sure that I actually liked surgery or whether I just liked the fun, laid back atmosphere that there was in the room I was in on that one day.

Thursday was my follow through day where I was assigned to one patient for the whole day. I met my patient in the operating room and was with the pre-op nurse when she went in and talked with the patient and family. I also got to to meet the anesthesiologist and went with him to give some medications to the patient. I met the surgical nurse and then stuck with her when she met the patient and brought her down to surgery. She had an anterior cervical fusion with allograft and plating, which basically means they removed the disks between two of her vertebra on the front side of the neck. One they are removed they replace the disks with cadaver bone and then secure them with plating. This day in surgery was not fun at all. The surgeon was much older and not really friendly at all, I couldn't see anything, and none of the nurses were really super nice to me or willing to tell me much. The surgical tech was the only person who really was explaining what was going on. But basically I just sat on a stool for about three hours without seeing anything. And it was freezing. After surgery I went with the patient to the PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit). Patients go here to come out of the anesthetic before they go up to their room. PACU was kind of cool just because I had never seen it before, and watching people come out from the anesthesia is pretty funny.

Overall though, after the second day in surgery I realized that it wasn't really something that I loved. While I had fun with it, I think that I really just don't love surgery enough to want to do it. Also, one of my favorite things about nursing is the interaction that I get to have with patients and the relationships that I get to build. Obviously in surgery you don't really have any patient interaction, and I could never handle that. It was a great week and and amazing learning experience though!

Manning up

I don't know when I got so terrible at updating this every week. Geeze. This week I think we will just move past the mundane update about what we learned in theory (acute pain and respiratory alterations if you really want to know). Clinical was much more of an experience last week though and I guess it's important that I talk about that. So last week was the first time we were able to start taking two patients on our own. We have only been taking one until we really got the feel of the floor and learned how to do everything and chart all of the things we do on our own. Now that we have that done, it's much easier for us to take two patients on our own, and it also gives us a better idea of what it's like to be a real nurse, since obviously a real nurse wouldn't only have one patient per day.

So Wednesday was my first day of having two patients. I also had two different nurses which was a little confusing just because I had to try to get report with both of them and then find each of them to keep them updated or ask a question. It was fine though. My one patient was a woman not much older than my mom, but she looked like she was probably 75. I also had this patient on Thursday and she really was the only patient I connected with enough to remember from last week. My other two patients were both fairly simple post-op patients. Anyway, this patient had been a heavy smoker and was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She was an amazing lady and I loved getting to know her over the two days that I was with her. She was another patient though that made me realize that I am going to need to toughen up as a nurse.

I have never denied knowing that my biggest problem with nursing was going to be getting too emotional with patients or getting too attached. As a side note: the hospital has therapy dogs that come in on Thursdays and visit with the patients and families. So when the dogs came into my patients room she just started crying because she loved them so much. I got really teary about it and realized that I definitely do get too emotional. She also got upset earlier in the day when her blood pressure was too low and it broke my heart that she was so upset. I came back into the conference room and told Lisa that I need to MAN UP. Ahhh I know it's okay to be emotional, but I worry that I'm going to be too much of a baby sometimes. Lol. I guess it's all just part of the learning experience :)

Connecting the dots

So every weekend that I go home it seems that the blog gets neglected (you either get me or the blog update, Mother). So here's what you missed: Last week in theory we spent all week talking about diabetes. We have literally talked about diabetes in every science class we have taken in the past four years of college. If I don't understand it by now, honestly, just throw me out of nursing school. But needless to say, we still spent four hours of theory talking about it some more. I did learn maybe a few things that I didn't know and that were specifically useful in the Med. Surg setting.

In lab we worked more on how to hang IV bags and IV piggybacks, spike the bags, prime the tubing, etc. This was kind of cool since this is something we actually do almost everyday in clinical. However, our lab instructors tend to make every lab take about an hour longer than it really needs to. We also did a lab on positioning and transfer, which was a little bit useful, but honestly we have all been transferring patients for months and pretty much already have it figured out. Our lab on Tuesday was on the peri-operative experience, which means the entire surgery experience from pre-op to PACU. We did a simulation for this where we did stations at pre-op, admission, post-op, and discharge. This was somewhat useful because we got to at least get some hands on experience. Again it took way longer than it needed to.

On Wednesday and Thursday I had clinical. My patient on Wednesday was an older man (my clinical instructor had me on an "old man" streak for a few days). He had lung cancer and was being sent home with hospice care and was very nice. It was a pretty good day but I didn't really feel like I connected with him very much since he was going home later in the day and I didn't really get hit it off with my nurse either. Not that she wasn't helpful, she just wasn't overly willing to teach me.

My patient on Thursday was AMAZING. And I had two nurses, one was the main RN and one was an RN intern, and both of them were great. They were super nice and helpful and answered any of my questions and helped me out when I needed it. My patient was a woman in her 50's who had been newly diagnosed with lung cancer (I also have been on a lung cancer streak lately). She was such a bright and positive person, even with her new diagnoses and the uncertainty of what her prognosis was going to be. We spent a lot of time walking and talking throughout the day, and I even washed her hair for her before I left for the afternoon. This was definitely the first patient that I really felt connected with and I found myself really thinking about after I left clinical. I found myself really hoping that her prognosis would be good and that she would recover. It makes me realize how hard it is going to be for me to separate myself from my patients, which I knew, but it's becoming all too real lately (not in bad way). I had a similar experience with my patient today, but I will write about that later!

The picture is of a concept map that I had to do on a patient, making connections between all of my patients health problems. It's kind of cool to see how all of the conditions that patients have all fit together and relate to each other. It's interesting to make the connections. I feel like I'm learning SOOO much in this rotation. It's crazy.

MRSA and all things -ostomy.

Welp, this week was our first week of big kid clinical at St. Mary's. Last week we just had orientation on Wednesday and then on Thursday we just shadowed a nurse. This week we actually got assigned to a patient and were their primary caregiver for the whole day. The nurse that was assigned to that patient still went in and saw the patient occasionally and did a quick assessment, but mostly we did probably 90% of the care and of the charting. We can do all of the patient's vitals, assessment, personal care (showers and cleaning up), emptying catheters, giving medications, changing linens, etc. I had the same patient both days this week since he wasn't leaving, which was really nice. My patient was an older man, and at first I thought he was going to give me a hard time and be a crotchity old man, but I won him over :) I also spent a good deal of time talking with his wife and just talking with them. It was nice being able to get to know my patient on a personal level, since I was spending a lot of time with him. I was able to see a lot of things that I had never seen before. He had a colostomy and ureterostomy and I learned how to clean those out (Again, glamorous nursing skills). And as a side note, after taking care of him ALL day on Wednesday starting at 7am, at around 1:30 my nurse comes over to inform me that they just found out he was positive for MRSA. So for the rest of my time taking care of him we had to be wearing a gown and gloves any time we walked into the room. I understand why this is important, but it was SUCH a hassle to have to do this just to walk in the room to give him his meds or drop off a fresh glass of water, but oh well. But my nurses both days were really great and all the the nurses at St. Mary's are really great and super willing to help us with anything that we need. I am really enjoying my time there :)

New semester :)

Last week was my first week of Nursing 350/351, also known as my third semester in the nursing program. This semester we start clinical right at the beginning of the semester instead of waiting until lab is over, so I started clinical on Wednesday of last week already! We still have lab for 7 weeks though, we just have lab and clinical at the same time. In lab this semester we learn how to hang IV's, give IV push meds, insert catheters, do dressing changes, and inserting NG tubes. Lab is pretty interesting, at leas the things we are learning are things that we will actually be doing during our clinical rotation this semester. Last week we learned to hang IV's and give IV push meds so that was kind of cool since we got to actually spike and hang the bags and learn to prime the tubing. Yay real nursing skills.

This semester I am doing my first Med. Surg rotation and mental health, starting with Med. Surg. My clinical rotation for the next 6 weeks is at St. Mary's Lack's Cancer Center in Grand Rapids (The pic is of the hospital). I really like the hospital and LOVE my instructor. I have heard a lot of great things about her and about the experience that people have had on the floor that I am on so I'm really looking forward to it. The floor we are on has a variety of patients that we will be taking care of. There are many patients with cancer, but also a lot of patients that are in the hospital post-surgery for things like bariatric surgery, and colon, lung, and abdominal surgeries. This week we had orientation on Wednesday and just got a feel for the hospital, learning the computer charting system, taking a tour, and filling out paperwork. Then Thursday we just shadowed a nurse to get an idea of how they do things and how their day goes. I really love the floor and the nurses are GREAT. I think I am going to learn tons from this rotation, which is really exciting. This week we start taking on our own patients (Scary). So hopefully that all goes well. We shall see :)

Two down, three to go!

Well now I can say that the semester is OFFICIALLY and COMPLETELY over, so I have two semesters down and three to go! I had my theory final on Tuesday morning and I basically decided to protest studying but I still did fine on it. I was a little disappointed because I really wanted an A in the class, but I guess I will have to settle for the B+. I guess I am okay with it because while I know that I could have gotten an A if I stayed in Grand Rapids and studied on the weekends, I decided it was more important to come home on the weekends and spend time with my friends and family. So I guess I really don't have any regrets about that. I also had Nursing Research this semester and I ended up with an A- in the class so I'm really thrilled about that. Also I got it over with early so I don't have to take it next semester with 350!

So overall, 320/321 was NOT even that bad of a semester. Everyone kept telling us that 320 was terrible and insane and crazy hard. I kind of want to punch those people in the face for freaking us all out and making us think it was going to be awful when it wasn't bad at all. Yes it was a lot of work, it was insanely unorganized and usually really confusing, but it was completely manageable and not worth all the freaking out. My only really big criticism of the class was how HORRIBLY unorganized it was. I probably had 12 professors for 2 classes and all of them would tell us different things. If the class could just get organized it would be much more enjoyable and much less frustrating. Really though, I loved having OB this semester and I didn't hate primary care. I'm just really really glad it's all over.

I'm super excited to start Nursing 350, working in a cancer center, and a home for people with mental disabilities, and learning new things :)

Pap smears and Primary Care

Today is the END OF THE SEMESTER!!!!!!!!! :) And even though I still have a few assignments, a presentation and two finals, it still feels good to have the actually class portion of the semester done. Yesterday and today I had my two days in the primary care clinic. We were at the GVSU Family Health Center from 8-5 rooming patients, charting vitals, reporting to the Nurse Practitioners and going into the room with them for the appointments. We actually got to see a lot more things than I thought I would. I was not at ALL looking forward to primary care and thought it would be boring and that I wouldn't learn anything. In reality I actually was able to see quite a bit over the two days I was there. I got to see a medication review, two pap smears, consults for a rash, asthma, anorexia, hypertension, lab reviews and lots of other things. I also got to give a few injections to patients. Primary care gets a bad rap but really it's pretty interesting, and the faculty member that was there with us was really good at making us think critically and dig deeper to figure out diagnoses for our patients. Everyone pretty much told me he was awful, but thankfully I think they were wrong because I really liked him, probably because he is super sassy, but also because I felt like I learned a lot from him in a really short time. Moral of the story, primary care was not that bad, and the semester will be completely over in 5 days.

Say your prayers that I can make it. And not go crazy. And not kill my research professor. And throw in some smiles for good measure.

Correction: Aliens

After this tough Facebook post from Nicole: "Idk if anyone has broken this news to you yet... I hope so, bc I don't want to be the one who has to do it. But, I'll take one for the team. Those are not monsters on your blog. They're aliens... that's why it says 'take me to your leader.' Alright, let me know how you're holding up after this harsh blow and if the...re's anything I can do to help you through this difficult time. :)" I now realize that there are ALIENS on my blog. NOT monsters. What an oversight on my part.

Anyway, I didn't update last week because nothing much happened! I had class all day Tuesday, met with my nursing research group to get rolling on our presentation that we have to give next week, and worked on some stuff for Webquest. Webquest is this super fun thing we have to do for seminar where we have to do a presentation and provide a teaching tool on a topic (my group is "Avoiding the Freshman 15") So we have to do website critiques, annotated bibs, answer questions, evaluate group members, etc. So we have to finish that up during break tomorrow and then present it in seminar at 3. Then classes will be over :)

I also had my last visit with my LEI client on Wednesday. This visit we began to make a time-line of our client's life covering the first twenty years. So basically I just got to sit and listen to my client tell me stories about her life, siblings, parents, friends, school, activities, etc. I LOVED it. She had so many funny stories to tell me and I loved just being able to sit and listen to her talk (while taking extensive notes of course). It was my favorite visit by far. So now I am done with all of my LEI stuff for the semester.

This week I FINALLY do my primary care clinical days on Thursday and Friday at the Grand Valley Family Health Center (which is the picture). Then in addition to doing all of my clinical assignments this weekend, I also have to study for two finals. It's gonna be a wonderful weekend.

My blog has monsters on it :)

That's not really the point of the entry, but I just really love my new blog template. I think it's seriously adorable. I think I will let it stay for a while because it makes me smile :) I especially like that it says "Take me to your Leader" on the sides.

Anyway, this week was actually pretty busy, or at least I had something to do everyday. Monday I had my meeting with Professor Couzens to go over my care plan, Nursing diagnoses, and Teaching and Learning paper before I went to my third LEI visit on Wednesday. I managed to get everything done before my meeting by some miracle. My meeting went really well considering I thought she would tear all of my stuff apart. As it turned out she pretty much loved everything and I had almost nothing that needed to be corrected. Boom. Tuesday I had class all day, including my 4th exam, which sucked a lot. The whole class pretty much bombed it so they ended up re-evaluating the test and giving us back some points so that helped. I still did worse on this exam than any other ones and I now I have a stupid 'B+' in the class. I'm hoping to raise it back to an 'A' by the end of the semester though. Wednesday I met with my LEI client for my third visit. This visit was my teaching visit so I taught my client about constipation relief and exercises and stretching and all kinds of things. She mostly knew all of it already, but it still went well. It was a super short visit, which was nice because then I got to go to Cheryl's house and swim all day :)

Which brings me to today, Thursday. I had to go to a health fair at the Metro Health Farmer's Market and take blood pressures and hand out nutrition information. It was actually a really awesome farmer's market and I ended up buying kettle corn, some raspberry salsa (which I will bring home Mom!) and some dip mix. There were 8 students that were at this health fair we took about 80 people's blood pressure. I probably did about 15 of them. It was really interesting to talk to people about blood pressure and nutrition related to fruits and vegetables and be able to do some one on one teaching. My professor that was there with us pulled me aside and asked me if I knew what I wanted to go into yet. I told her I was thinking Pediatrics or Labor and Delivery and she told me I should go into something where I have limited time with patients because I am great at establishing rapport with clients very quickly. So that kind of made my day :)

Tomorrow I am volunteering at the Nursing 315 orientation for the class starting in the fall. It's hard to believe that I am already almost done with two semesters and now helping welcome in the new class. It feels like I JUST had my orientation and wrote my first blog entry and now we are almost done with NUR 320. Awww we are all growing up so fast :)

Baptists, Blood pressures and BMI's

Well compared to my last few posts about OB, this week wasn't really eventful in my nursing life, but I did get some things out of the way. Tuesday was a long day of class because in addition to theory and seminar we had a mandatory orientation for one of the Health fairs that we had to go to. Because it was a research project we all had to be "certified" on taking blood pressure and have our blood pressure cuffs checked out. Which meant no 3 hour break for me to get all of my homework done, so I was extra crabby.

Thursday I went on an LEI visit with Kristin for my second "buddy visit." So basically I just go with her to her visit and evaluate her on her communication, assessment, rapport, etc. Then she went with me to my visit on Friday and did the same thing. The visits we did this week were the physical assessment visits so we had to do a complete physical on our client in their homes. This is super in depth, takes forever and covers more assessments than could ever be necessary in the real world. The visits both went fine though and from now on we do the next two visits on our own. My next one is already scheduled for Wednesday.

Today I had a mandatory health fair from 12-4. We were working with a program called Body and Soul that takes place in 10 African American churches throughout Grand Rapids. The church we were working with was called New Hope Baptist Church (hence the picture). Nursing 451 students did all of the planning and executing of this aspect of the program, we just went to help take blood pressures and talk with the participants. So basically we went to a church picnic and set up a tent to take height, weight, pulse and blood pressure for all of the adults at the picnic. We calculated BMI and went over where they stood with BMI and blood pressure and referred them if they were obese or had high blood pressure. It really wasn't that awful, it just started raining and got really gross outside. But it was kind of fun to meet with people and do some patient education about BMI and blood pressure.

In other news I have so much to do right now that it's crazy. For tomorrow I have my meeting with my LEI adviser to go over my care plan, teaching/learning paper and nursing diagnoses. I haven't even started my paper yet. I also had to type of my journal from my LEI visit, physical assessment and buddy evaluation. And I have a quiz due Tuesday. Oh and did I mention the exam I have on Tuesday? Yeah, combine that with working Monday and Wednesday, Health Fair Thursday and volunteering at NUR315 orientation on Friday and its gonna be a long week. Hopefully it will go by quickly!!

Primary care overload

Friday I had Primary Care orientation and simulation all day from 9-4. It was a blast. Not. For the simulation part of the day worked with the Physician's Assistant students to care for model patients. What happened was that the nurse would go into the room, knowing only the patient's name and their chief complaint, and ask them as many pertinent questions as we could in about 5 minutes. So if the complaint was a cough we had to find out how long they had it, how it started, if they are taking anything for it, if anything makes it better or worse, etc. Along with the usual questions, meds, allergies, vital signs and all that jazz. Then we left the room and came out and reported to the PA what we had found, then we went in together and asked more questions and then the PA diagnosed the patient and we had to do the nursing diagnoses for the patient. It was pretty cool actually, and it was definitely a good idea of what it's like to work in primary care in real life.

Then we moved on to the orientation part of the day. This sucked a lot. For Primary Care we have to do a couple of things: LEI (elderly client), health fairs, and clinical. For our LEI client we need to meet with them 4 times, do their health history, a physical exam, create a care plan and teach it to them, and being making a time line of their life. We also have to write a teaching/learning paper and make write a journal for each visit. And we have to go on 2 buddy visits and write up peer evaluations for the people we observe. Super fun right? Then we also have to go to two health fairs, where we take blood pressure and hand out nutrition handouts (that we have to make), and write a reflection. Then for clinical we do two days in the GVSU Family Health Center, and for this we have to write SOAP notes, goals, and loads of other great stuff.

Moral of the story, even though primary care doesn't seem like much on the surface, it's actually going to be a crap ton of work. I am less than thrilled because I really just want to be done with school.

30 days from today I will be done for the semester :)

The day I saw a baby come out of a vagina.

I tried to come up with a more creative and less graphic title, but then I decided that if I had to see it in real life, you all could probably handle reading it. If not, I apologize. I also apologize for the two "The day I..." titles in a row. I guess my creative juices are just not flowing right now, that or they are all going into trying to write my Tuskegee paper (clearly I'm doing a great job writing it right now).

So last Friday was my last day of OB Clinical! Crazy right? Last week as also the most exciting week of clinical because I got to see TWO deliveries. I know this doesn't sound that exciting, but after waiting for three weeks to see one, it was really exciting to see deliveries two days in a row. Since I already talked about the C-section I guess I can talk about Friday! So Friday when I got there, my instructor came in and said there was a woman that was already 6cm dilated and this was her third baby (meaning her labor would probably go quickly). By the time I got down there they said she was already 8cm. So I went and found my nurse, who was AMAZING by the way, and we went in to check on the patient. When we checked her again, she was ready to push! This was at like 7:25. We called the doctor, she came in, and she started pushing at 7:42, aaaand the baby was born at 7:52. WOW. It went super quick. I got to hold one of her legs while she pushed so I was right up in the action. Once the baby was born I got to put the medication in his eyes and give him the Vitamin K shot. There's nothing like giving a shot to a 5 minute old baby to make you feel really guilty. But it was amazing and I loved being able to see the birth and be a part of it. Then the nurse let me do all of the 15 minute checks on the mom and record all of information and what not. So it was great. We left early on Friday to go to our last post-conference and I didn't want to leave...

So like I said, Friday was the last day of OB Clinical. All of our paperwork and assessments and what not was due this week and we met with our instructor to make sure everything was done and that we had passed. As happy as I am to do done with the next step of Nursing 320, I am really going to miss being in OB and seeing the babies :) I could definitely see myself working as Labor and Delivery Nurse. But now it's on to Primary Care, which I am not looking forward to even a little bit.

The day I didn't pass out in a C-Section

Today I got to see a C-Section, yaaaaaaaaaay! :) My patient today was scheduled for a C-Section at 9am, so when she came in at 7:30 I got to start working with her. My nurse today was AMAZING and let me help her do a lot of things and she was great at explaining everything that was happening. I felt super cool because I got to wear booties and a hair net and face mask and go into the operating room and all that jazz. The actual C-section took about an hour from the time we walked into the OR until the time we walked out. There were like 12 people in the OR which was crazy, but it was 2 students and one trainee and I think an extra doctor. So it was basically an OR party. I wasn't even nervous at all until the nurses and my classmates kept asking if I was nervous. Haha then dad got really fidgety and nervous too so then I started getting nervous. Mostly because I was afraid I would pass out. Totally didn't. I didn't even feel remotely hot or lightheaded at all the whole time. Watching the C-Section was REALLY cool and my nurse explained everything that was happening as they were doing it. I thought it was fascinating. Watching the doctor pull the baby out was crazy, I don't think there is really any way to prepare yourself for that. It was cool though, and the baby was great, healthy and crying when she came out. Then I got to watch the doctors do all of the sutures. The mom was also WONDERFUL. She talked to me a lot and made me feel like I was actually a part of the process. After she was mostly finished with the C-Section and her husband had left with the baby she was chatting with the staff and she yells "Lindsay how did you do!?!" Haha I told her I was doing great and she said she was glad, so it was kind of fun to be a part of it. I'm going to be taking care of her again tomorrow which will be really nice! So yeah, moral of the story, I can handle being in a surgery without passing out. This is good news. Today was BY FAR, my favorite clinical day ever. Which is cool since tomorrow is our last day :)

I can't even believe that tomorrow will be the end of OB clinical and the end of "Part 2" of the semester. Geeze.

Clinicals Week 3

So I know you are all hanging on the edge of your seats wondering what I did all of last week, so here goes. Tuesday in Theory we talked about the Tuskegee study, which if you don't know, happened from the 1930's to the 1970's and involved studying the effects of untreated syphilis in African American men. Even though treatment was available, these men never received it, and never even were told that they had syphili because it was more important to the government to study what would happen to the men if they let the disease just run its course. Oh and the men thought they were being treated even though they weren't. Way to go America. It wasn't until more than 20 years later that a President even apologized for this and compensated survivors and family members of the men who were part of this study. Then in seminar we watched a movie about Tuskegee called "Ms. Evers Boys" and it was pretty much just a super uplifting day.

Thursday I was in the Special Care Nursery at the hospital and I gotta say, it was not the most exciting day. Don't get me wrong, I was able to see a lot of cool stuff and learn a lot by talking to the nurse that I was working with, but as far as being able to DO anything, not so much. There was one baby in there that I got to do my assessment on that was a 34 week old and weighed only 4 pounds. The other baby in there was full term but was admitted to Special Care because she was having breathing problems and having trouble feeding. So it was really interesting to see all of the monitors and equipment in the nursery but I was pretty bored. I did get my newborn assessment done though which was something I really needed to finish so that was good! :)

Friday was just a normal day, I took care of a mother/baby couplet and did my maternal assessment on the mom I was taking care of. The day went really well, also pretty uneventful. Clinicals are really great and I really am enjoying being in the hospital. It makes me want to be done with nursing school and just be a nurse. I guess one more year isn't that long to wait right?

Labor and....no delivery,

So let's see what happened this week... Well Tuesday I had my second exam in Theory, which I again, did not study for. And this time I really mean I didn't study. I have class at 8:30 in the morning, and I started studying at exactly 8am. What did I get on it? A 93%. Yes, I am that great. I guess if you actually read, go to class, take notes and pay attention you can actually do well. Who knew.

I had my second week of OB clinical this week also. Thursday I was paired with Sam and we were assigned to a pretty good nurse. The only problem was that 2 other people were also assigned to that nurse, so there were four of us all trying to talk to and follow around one nurse. So that was really annoying and got kind of frustrating. She seemed to like us though and let us follow her around quite a bit throughout the day. The other downside of this day was that our patient was NOT thrilled about us being there. Actually she wasn't thrilled about being in the hospital at all. To make a long story short, she thought she was going to get to go home but because the baby was group B strep unknown the baby had to stay for 48 hours. It had been MAYBE 28 hours at this point. So she wasn't thrilled to say the least when we had to go in and tell her this. But it was fine, I hung out in the nursery a lot and did some newborn assessments and just hung out and loved up all the babies. Oh and Thursday I gave my first injection. I gave Hep B to a one-day old muffin :)

Friday I was in Labor and Delivery. But mostly it was all labor. Katie and I were both in L&D that day and our rooms were next to each other, so at least we got to have fun being bored together. The picture is pretty much of the type of monitor we stared at ALL DAY. When I got there my patient was 4cm dilated and had been in the hospital since the night before so I was super pumped that she was going to have the baby. She was also really nice and excited to have a student for the day. I got to see the CRNA do the epidural and he was great and let me watch and he explained everything as he went. He was really great and it was really cool to see the epidural. It was a lot different than I thought it would be, which was interesting. But moral of the story, at 1:30 she was at 8cm and there was still no baby. At 1:30 we usually change out of our scrubs, leave the floor and go to a post-conference. I asked my nurse if there was any reason that I should stay for another half hour and miss the conference and she said she didn't think it would make sense because she didn't think she was going to have the baby. So I left and went to the conference. On the way out of the conference at about 2:15 I walked past the nurse's station and asked one of the nurses what was going on with my patient and she says to me "Oh didn't anyone come and get you? She just delivered." I was HEATED and about to flip a table, lol. I was SO disappointed, but hopefully I will get to see a birth another day.

I ALSO had my first meeting with my LEI Client on Thursday and am going with Kristin to her first meeting tomorrow, so it's nice to get a jump start on that so we aren't so stressed next rotation!

Big kids!

So Friday was our first REAL day of clinicals and good news, didn't hurt anyone :) When we got there we changed into our super sweet blue scrubs, were paired up with a partner for the day and assigned to a patient. We were also assigned to report to the nurse that was in charge of the patient and listen to her get report from the nurse that was leaving. I was paired with Katie and we were assigned to a really great nurse. She actually let us take vital signs and check on ALL of her patients instead of just the one were were technically assigned to. Getting the vital signs on the babies was funny because they are SO tiny and SO wiggly and they hate being messed with when they are sleeping. We get to use these special stethoscope that are super cute because the bell that you use to listen is baby sized :) (That's what the pic is of). We also got to see a circumcision, help give a 6lb newborn baby a bath, and check vital signs on the mothers and babies. We also got to hang out with the lactation consultants and go on a few visits with them. Our nurse was really great and let us do a lot considering it was our first day. I think this was partially because it was her first day back to work in like 3 weeks and she clearly did not want to be working at 7am. This worked out well for us though because it meant we got to do a lot! She let us sit in with her when she did all of her assessments and talked with the mothers. She also worked with us to help teach us how to do all of our computer charting which is actually getting easier the more we work with it. Overall it was a really great day, and as nervous as I thought I was going to be, once we jumped into it being there just felt kind of natural. Which is what you are looking for in a chosen career :) I am really started to feel like a big kid!

Baby crazy

First of all let me just tell you, if you are wondering if I am a fan of getting up at 4:45 in the morning, I am not. That being said, I actually didn't hate the majority of my orientation at Holland Hospital today. (Side note: I feel like I have gone more orientations in the past 6 months than could possibly be necessary).

Anyway, we started off by meeting the nurse educator, filling out all of our paperwork with Human Resources, getting pictures taken for our ID badges, get our computer passwords, and getting some general questions answered. So all of that took the first two hours-ish of the time we were there. Then came the big fun. And by big fun I mean most boring 2 hours of my life spent learning computer charting. It was honestly the most boring thing ever. Not that I expected computer charting to be the most fun I've ever had but GEEZE. It was boring. And confusing. And I feel like its much more than we need to know for only being in the hospital for 8 days. But what do I know. The nurse is going to hate me on the first day when I have no idea how to do charting. Haha. Then we had our lovely lunch break. This hospital is GORGEOUS. I think I am going to really like working there. We also got a tour of the unit that we will be working on, including the Pyxis room, staff lounge, patient rooms, etc. We also get an access badge that allows us into pretty much everything on the unit except for the Meds Pyxis. We also had a lactation consultant come down and meet with us and give us some information on breastfeeding which was actually really awesome, she was great. We also went over all of the assignments that we have to do throughout our clinicals and had them all explained to us so I feel much less stressed.

I'm really happy with the hospital and looking forward to having the chance to do my first rotation there. I feel like they give us a whole lot of power and access to the hospital, which is a little crazy but pretty cool. I am really nervous to have all of the responsibility for taking care of a mother and a baby all on my own. And tomorrow we are actually going to be getting assigned to patients (mothers and babies) and learning how to do assessments on them. Tomorrow will also be a lot of learning our way around the unit. Also, after spending some time on the unit today we realized that most of the people in my group are baby whores. We were all acting like crazy people trying to see them. Needless to say, I think we are all really excited for babies! :)

Fun fact: Nurses in OB get pink name badges while everyone else gets white ones. This is to prevent new moms from giving their baby to someone who could be a baby snatcher! Ahhh people are crazy! Good thing we get pink ones! :)

End of part 1!

So from the beginning of this semester I was super overwhelmed and kind of irritated that I had to be in school all summer. To help make nursing seem less overwhelming I kept telling myself that it was really like 3 separate parts, 4 weeks of lab, 4 weeks of OB Clinical and 4 weeks of primary care (there is one week between the 2 clinical rotations). When I think of it like 3 separate parts it makes it seem much more manageable.

So this week was the end of the first part! Lab was over this week and we had our simulation lab and orientation to our clinical. For simulation lab we were in groups of 4 with people from our clinical group (there are 8 of us in each clinical group). We had 5 stations that went through and in each one we got to learn about a patient, gather information about them, and practice what assessments and what questions we would ask them and then figure out what we would do for them. The third station was when we got our simulation patent's information and we got to plan what we would do for her. In the fourth station we had our actual simulation. The manikin is one of the highest levels and has a pulse, blood pressure, respirations, etc. And all the room are audio/video equipped so when we talked to our "patient" we were really talking to our professor from the observation room. She would answer questions and talk to us as if she were the patient. The fifth room was just a de-briefing room. It was a really cool simulation to do and we are lucky that we have such an amazing facility that allows us to do these things. Grand Valley's Simulation Lab is apparently becoming a pretty big deal.

The rest of the day was clinical orientation to the hospital we will be working at; my OB clinical is at Holland Hospital. This was the first time we got to break up into our clinical groups and meet our clinical faculty member. There are 8 people in my group, and most of them are people I already know. I think my group will be a lot of fun and I really like everyone in it. Our faculty person seems super nice and she is super organized. I think I will really enjoy being at Holland, even though it seems like there is a ton of stuff we have to bring with us on the first day. I am really excited to finally start doing clinicals, since it seems like this is really what we have been working toward. Hopefully I really enjoy my first rotation and not get lost or mess anything up. We are all carpooling on the first day so at least we won't get lost!

You can go here if you are interested in the hospital I will be at www.hollandhospital.org :)

Passing lab and not failing Exam One

I know its not a very creative title for this post, but what can I say, it's what happened today. Contrary to what I thought yesterday, I only had to play the "multiple choice guessing game" a limited number of times on my theory exam. I actually ended up getting an 87% on it, which is amazing, considering that I studied for MAYBE a grand total of an hour. So needless to say, I was pretty impressed with myself. And since this exam is worth a lot more than the other ones, it's nice to have a pretty solid start. So yeah, good stuff. I also passed by Medication Administration final testing today so now I've passed out of all my lab skills and get tomorrow off :) And we are done with lab for the semester! Now all I have left this week is OB Simulation Lab and Clinical Orientation from 9-4 on Thursday and I'm done for the week.

Score.

Time flies.

Well apparently my blog updating skills have been lacking later, so here goes! Last week in theory we learned more about Labor & Delivery, specifically about the postpartum client. I love love love the professor that we have had for lecture the last two classes, and she is doing our lecture tomorrow. Sadly after that she doesn't do anymore lectures for our class. Sad news. She is super great though. She works as an L&D nurse and has so many stories that it actually makes our 3.5 hour class bearable. We have our first theory exam tomorrow and I haven't really studied at all for it. Stay tuned for a rousing game of "Let's see how well Lindsay can guess on multiple choice questions." Should be a good time.

In other news, we are almost done with lab! :) Last week Tuesday we had our Med Calculations test, that we needed to get 100% on to pass. Aaaaand I passed it. Also on Tuesday I did my sterile technique testing and passed that as well. And sometime last week I tested out of injection sites. Maybe that was last Friday? Who knows. Either way I passed that one too. Wednesday I didn't have to go to lab because I rocked sterile technique testing. Thursday we did Medication Administration pretesting. This was SUPER helpful because we just got to have a full run through of the testing and get feedback on things we need to work on before the real test. The only thing I did wrong was not pick the right length of needle for my injection but I corrected myself at the end and the professor doing the testing said other than that I did everything exactly right. So my final testing for that is tomorrow @ 1250. If I pass that then I am done with everything for lab except for a simulation day on Thursday. These last three weeks have FLOWN by.

I guess I can continue my rambling on and talk about seminar. Oh seminar... Well, the "professor" that I have for seminar has no idea what is going on. She agreed to teach this class literally 4 days before the start of the semester (how have I gone this long without venting about this??). I get really frustrated when people don't know what's going because I like organization and I like to know exactly what I am supposed to be doing. What I don't like is having a teacher who doesn't have access to Blackboard, know ANYTHING about our program, or know what we are doing. Apparently it's totally fine to just pull random nurses off the street and let them teach seminars. She's a nice lady, but the class is BEYOND frustrating. Luckily the course coordinator is figuring this out and sending us emails to help us out.

So yeah, that's what's new. Bring on WEEK FOUR! :)

PS. "Time flies" is another expression that I hate.

Injections and my new badge reel!

So this week in theory we started learning about labor and delivery, and in the coming weeks we will talk about the postpartum client, the newborn, etc. Clearly since we are doing our OB rotation this semester. It was actually super interesting and I managed to actually listen for the whole 3.5 hours of lecture, which isn't usually the easiest thing for me. The professor that did our lecture this week will also be doing our lectures for the next two weeks, which is awesome because I love her. And I love babies. Duh.

In lab this week we learned medication administration and injections! Meds administration was pretty interesting but, like everything else we've been learning, super nit picky with a lot of things to remember. I understand that the things we need to do are for a reason. For every medication we give we have to match the physician's order with the Meds sheet, initial it. Check each med, then do the 5 Rights- right patient, right med, right dose, right route and right time. And we have to say each of these 3 separate times. It's basically pretty simple though, but it makes you really see how important it is to be accurate with medications, because our mistakes could essentially kill our patients. We also have to make sure everything is DOCUMENTED, because again, if it is documented it could lead to a double dose or big legal issues. So yeah no pressure or anything. It's not like we could mess up and kill people or anything...

Today is lab we got to do INJECTIONS! We got to learn with real needles and syringes and vials and everything. (I know I sound like an overly excited 6 year old, but it was really exciting so just go with it). We got to use different needles and gauges and "medications." We learned how to give intramuscular, subcutaneous and intradermal injections into a model of a leg. We also learned all the sites that we can give injections. It was actually really fun to learn, but it was a little overwhelming to try to remember all of the specifics about the different types of needles, sites, injections, etc. And it was definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. Picture a room of 22 people all hitting syringes with pens trying to learn to get out all the air bubbles. It was relatively hilarious. Good thing we have like 4 days to practice coming up! Practice is basically all I feel like we do these days.

Also, I bought a badge reel today that SNA is selling as a fundraiser. They are made from the tops of medication vials and they are SUPER CUTE. The picture at the top is of the one I bought today :) It's adorable.

One week down, a million to go

Well, this god awful week is finally over, and to be fair, it ended a LOT better than it started. The past few days I've been able to figure out everything on the Blackboard site, get everything printed and organized and learn how to keep all of my schedules for theory, lab and seminar straight. At least for the next three weeks until everything changes again. So now I feel like even though there is a ton of reading and work that I have to do, I feel less overwhelmed in that at least I KNOW what i'm supposed to be doing for each class. So as far as that part of being overwhelmed goes, I'm feeling a whole lot better.

This week in lab we are learning about documentation, medical calculations and sterile technique. Tuesday was just lab orientation and then Wednesday we started learning about documentation and why it's so important. Good stuff. We also learned about medical calculations, such as converting ounces to mL to teaspoons, etc. We also learned how to fill an order for say 15mg, if the solution concentration is something like 20mg/mL. We got a lot of lectures about how if we do this wrong, we will kill people. No pressure. It's not surprising then that we have to pass our med calc test with 100%. Good thing I got 100% on my pretest today. Boom. Sterile technique is a pain in the ass, because even though there isn't that much to it, it's so hard to remember not to contaminate your sterile field. You cross your hand over it...fail. You touch your sterile glove to your body, arm, hair, table...fail. Bring your hands below your waist...fail. Turn your back on the sterile field...fail. It's just a lot of nit picky stuff to remember. We have a lot of time to practice though, so i'm sure by the time we get to testing we will all be pros.

In other news, I miss my friends. I have 4 other people from last semesters lab (which I will probably forever refer to as Lab 101) in my new lab section. Nine of them are in one of the other sections and i'm super upset that i'm not with them. I see them in the morning briefly when they get out of lab and we are heading into lab, and I get really sad. We saw one of our professors from lab last semester and we literally mobbed her and had a giant group hug. The five of us in my lab section now are really trying to make new friends, and I do like a lot of the new people in my lab so hopefully I get to know some of them. I just really miss my 101 friends. I didn't think it would be this hard for us to be split up...It's fine, I know that is unbelievably lame.