Potluck and Sim Lab

So as we wrap up our semester in Nursing 315 (yay!) we are working to put together all of the assessment skills that we have learned all semester. Another part of this wrap up is learning how to actually be able to do a head to toe assessment on an actual patient without looking like a complete idiot. True Life: Harder than you would think.

Today we did our first simulation lab. How this worked was that we got into groups of four (My group was Team Abdomen...because we were Team A and I asked Dan to say the first A word that he thought of...what does he think of? Abdomen.) There were four groups and four manikin simulations set up. One baby and three adults. One person in the group would the registered nurse, one would be the student nurse, another would be the voice of the patient if there wasn't a lab assistant doing it, and the other would be the silent observer. Each simulation lasted around 15 minutes and we had to do an appropriate assessment based on the case studies that we were given for each patient. The manikins are suuuper cool. They breathe, have a pulse, blood pressure, and fetal heart sounds. Oh and the baby can cry. And all the rooms have audio and video set up so our professors can look in on us.

The sim lab was really cool, but really nerve racking. I think a lot of us went in there thinking we knew exactly what to do and then realized it wasn't as easy as we thought it was going to be. I know I went into the room with a plan and when my plan took about half as long as I thought it would, I froze and lost all train of thought. Haha luckily I pulled it together and moved on to some other parts of the assessment. It was definitely a good learning experience though!

Side note: Yesterday we had a pot luck breakfast in lab AND we had a dance party. There was so much food...It was absolutely ridiculous. You could smell bacon the second you walked into the CHS building. It was epic. Also we look an adorable "Friends for Life" picture of the entire class. I will post it as soon as it is on Facebook :) Love my nursing friends.