Mary Free Bed

This semester I am doing my Pediatrics clinical at Helen Devos Children's Hosptial. This hospital is BRAND new and just opened on January 11th of this year (I will update more about how awesome it is in my next entry). Anyway, because it just opened the 11th, the hospital instated a two week waiting period on having any students in the building in order to give the nurses, doctors, staff in general a chance to adjust and get comfortable in the new hospital before bringing in students. Because of this, we had to go somewhere else for our first two weeks of clinical in order to make up the hours. Hence, Mary Free Bed.

Mary Free Bed is a rehabilitation hospital in Grand Rapids. It is actually attached to Saint Mary's Hospital where I did my last med. surg. rotation. MFB is a small hospital with only 80 beds all located on one floor. The floor is divided into 4 different teams: Pediatrics, Spinal cord injuries, Brain injuries, and stroke and amputations. The patients that come to MFB are sent there after they are stable and no longer require hospitalization but still require more care and rehab than can be provided at home. Most of the patients are at MFB for a long time, usually weeks to months so it's definitely not a short term care type of place. The majority of the care that is done in this hospital is done by physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, etc. All of the therapists work with both the patients and the families in order to help the whole family feel prepared to go home. They have really great therapy facilities, including a whole floor that is meant to help people learn how to do every day tasks such as get in and out of the car (yes they have a car inside), shop for groceries (they have a mock grocery store), eat in a restaurant (yup, model restaurant), go up and down the stairs, curbs, walk on different surfaces, and more. They also have a full size model apartment that patients can use to learn how to get around their homes, put away groceries, get in and out of bed, get around the bathroom, etc. They also have a swimming pool that they use for therapy. Very cool. They do a lot of awesome stuff here.

So my clinical group was there last week working on the floor, helping out the nurses, doing patient care, going to therapy with our patients when we were able to, and basically just seeing what kinds of things they do there. The patient I worked with had been in a car accident and had a traumatic brain injury. She was only a few years old but had come SO far in the months that she had been there and she was finally getting ready to go home soon. It was awesome to hang out with her because she was adorable and had the greatest laugh I've ever heard. We pretty much just got to hang out all day and go for walks and color. I had a blast with her. There were so many kids there that had suffered really terrible brain injuries or were recovering from brain tumors and surgery. Many of them basically are re-learning their entire lives. They have to re-learn how to walk, talk, eat, use the bathroom, dress themselves. Everything. But they are awesome. All of the kids we saw were smiley and seemed happy. I'm sure it's not easy for them, but kids are so amazing in how resilient they are and how quickly they can improve. I didn't really love the nursing aspect of being there though, since the nurses don't really do a ton. They mostly just give (very) few meds, check vitals and do assessments, and sometimes do personal care and get the kids dressed, put on their braces, and a few other things, but mostly they don't do a ton since therapy does so much. So I don't think rehab nursing is my thing, but kids are definitely my thing. Kids are awesome.

This week we are at the Children's hospital. It's unbelievable. Stay tuned.