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 :)