My Expose

This is my "office", a little corner I have carved out for myself to do my studies. It is an absolute PIT! I know it's bad and during the quarter I do little to improve the situation. The only good thing about it is that it prevents school stuff from flowing all over the house and getting in the way. So, every three months I give it an overhall and throw out paperwork no longer needed and get rid of the dust bunnies. As you can see, I have a little friend who visits often and is usually in the way. Oh, well. She's a sweety.

First night on Peds

So last night was pretty good, I had heard stories about how rude some of the nurses are and how they completely ignor the students, but fortunately I didn't see that. I picked a difficult patient but I knew I would learn a lot more with this one and I did. I won't go into detailes but there was a G-J tube , a trach, decub ulcers, contractures and mental retardation so there were a lot of things that I got to observe that I hadn't had on adult med surg.
And, it's funny but I ran into a couple other nurses that I already know so that was cool!

I've got some major studying to do this weekend for a test on moday and I NEED to make up points that I lost on the last test. Then one more week of Peds, then I'll be done with clinical for the quarter yea!

A few more weeks

So here it is friday night and instead of reading my homework and studying I'm brousing the internet reading my favorite nursing blogs. I swear, sometimes I can be such a procrastinator! But, it's been a long hard week and I feel like my brain needs a break, either that or it's slow burn out as we get closer to the end of the quarter. I've got two more theory tests, two pharm tests, a pediatric lab and simulation and three more conceptsmaps to do for the rest of the quarter.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about where I want to end up when I'm done with school and I'm stil leaning towards OR but I'm not totally sure. I hope to have a chance to do my preceptorship there but I have no control over that. The powers that be have that decision, not me. They base it on gpa and on an essay you turn in.
Anyways, I really should be focusing on my immediate school work and not on the future so much! Last night I had a couple more chances to hang some IV bags and set the pumps. I'm slowly getting more and more comfortable with this and I wish I could be doing it every day.
This next week starts pediatrics and I'll be working in a large pediatric hospital for clinical. I hope it goes well, I really have no intention of working with kids at all but the exposure will be interesting, we'll see.

Way too much!

Ive got so much going on this week!
1) Sons birthday parties to throw, one for friends and one for family.
2) Care plans to finish up for labor and delivery
3) Peer reviews to turn in for our research paper, are you kidding me? I can barely right my own let a alone give people critique on theirs!
4) Test number three on childbirth, pediatric GI problems
5) Pharmacology quiz
Oh, yea, home baked goodies for kids valentines parties.

I also signed up today to be on the SNO commitee. (Student nurses organization) I will be their mentee coordinator, helping new first quarter students get acclimated and set up with mentors from 2nd quarter students.
I know this seems like a lot but it will look good on the resume and will hopefully open some doors. I'd like to get a job as a nurse tech in the next couple months and their is a job fair coming soon where all the hospitals tell you about the positions they've got and try to recruit you. I'm looking forward to that!

Quick update on labor and delivery

Last night was my one and only night I had to experiance a day in labor and delivery. It was really great in some ways and a little boring in other ways. I know I only got one veiw of it, but some of the time it was fast pased and exciting but the rest of the time was a lot of waiting around. One nurse would have one laboring mother, so if the mother was progressing slowly then really, your just monitoring her contractions and fetal heart rate on the monitor in the nurses station. I think I prefer something a little more fast paced. If I'm going to be working 12 hour shifts. I want to be busy and have the time fly by.
Ok, so my first experiance was right after we got there, their was a C section going on and a friend and I had to decide who got to go in because they would only let one. She ended up letting me go after much debate about, you go, no you go, no it's okay you go. Any way, I got in and although they had taken the baby out already, I got to watch them sew up the uterus and the perineal lining which was still sitting on top of her stomach. Very neat! Placenta looked great, and she only lost about 600 ml of blood. Baby was beautiful, 5 pds or so and so precious. I watched another student there on her preceptorship give the vitamin K shot and put antibiotic eye ointment. They did the apgar on the baby, 8/9 , very healthy. It was a great exprience.
The next birth I saw, the gal was getting her epidural, the anesthesiologist let me watch up close, wow that is a big needle, and she was starting to say she felt a lot of pressure almost like she had to push. Well, she had just been checked and was only 4cm. He layed her back down and hadn't evan had a chance to push the drug in yet, when all of a sudden there was head appearing and the baby was coming out. Of course nothing was set up yet, so the nurse called everyone in and they worked as a cohesive unit to get the room set up in about 3 min. The nurses were amazing. Doc ran in and got there just in time. All was good, baby was healthy and beautiful and it was an amazing thing to watch.

Maternal child unit

We are finally into the maternal child section and so far I am having a great time. Our first test was today and I'm fairly certain I got an A so that's good. We had a lab yesterday and today that let us get a chance to perform a newborn assessment and a post pardom assessment. I checked breasts, fundal tone, lochia, episiotomy site and every thing else. Our care plans will be alittle different than we are used to since we can't pick our patient a day ahead of time. We are supposed to make a very generic care plan for a normal birth and recovery and then change the care plan as needed when we get the actual patient picked out. My first day will be on thursday, so cross your fingers for a full moon and lots of births to observe!