The Real World

This week was my last week in Nursing 315, which is crazy. I'm just going to talk about standard patients in this entry, but stay tuned for my cheesy reflection on 315 and thoughts on moving on to 320/321. Coming soon!:)

Thursday and Friday we had standard patients come in for us to practice doing our head to toe assessment on. Standard patients are just real people that get paid to come in and be our "patients." They are essentially the closest to real world patients that we can get. Thursday we had child patients, which a lot of my class was super nervous about, but I was clearly super excited about. Because I think I relate MUCH better to kids than to adults, so I wasn't even remotely scared of doing assessments on the kids. I was a little bit nervous to do the assessment in front of the parents in the room, but I figure after dealing with parents at day-cares for the past 4 years, I could handle it. My first "patient" was an 11 year old boy and my second was a 3 year-old boy. The 3 year-old was having a major meltdown when I walked in the room, but within a few minutes I got him to cooperate and I had SO much fun with him. He was adorable and I wanted to steal him. Don't worry, I didn't Anyway, both assessments went really well and I LOVED Thursday a lot. It made me feel super confident in my assessment skills and also with my ability to communicate with children. In case I was doubting that I wanted to work in pediatrics...lol

Friday we had adult patients. This one I was worried about. I know how to relate to kids, and I know how to talk to kids. Kids don't make me nervous, they don't make me doubt my skills, they don't know if I'm doing something wrong. Adults however, totally do. Hence, the nerves. My first "patient" was an old woman and let me tell you, she made me SUPER nervous. Once I got my bearings and started the assessment it actually went pretty well. I didn't feel like I did nearly as well as I did with the kids though. My next patient was a woman only a few years older than me, so I was much more comfortable and the assessment went really well I think. I actually had a really good time with the two days of standard patients, and it really gives us a good idea of what it will be like to do this with real patients. I also made me realize how far we have come this semester and how much we have learned. We really are turning into real life nurses, and I love that we get to have experiences like this one to help us grow and learn and see that :)