I can't believe it's been more than a month since I've been on here! That just goes to show you how busy nursing school is! Obviously, I can't re-cap everything that has been going on in the last month but I'll give a roundabout summary:
School is going well. Let's see..we've had 2 major exams and 2 pharm exams thus far. It's been cool. The 2nd unit of the semester was on Cardiac. Loved it...love the instructor (who is also my clinical instructor) but did not love the exam! I ended up with an 82, which in a normal school would be a B..but not at mine. That's a C. Which is totally fine with me since it's still passing. But, working on the cardiac floor as a nursing assistant and this unit has definitely got me interested in working in cardiac. My ultimate goal is to be a Nurse Practitioner, with a specialty in acute care (such as an ICU or ER). I may also want to work with a cardiologist in an office setting. But, no matter where I end up, I'm pretty certain at this time, I want to start in cardiology. The heart is such an amazing and fascinating muscle.
A few weeks ago, all the freshman in my program had to attend the NJ Student Nurses Association convention in Atlantic City. While the convention left more to be desired, it was nice to just get away. I went down with "Morgan" and "Candace" the night before and we had a...um.."nice" time before the convention..lol.
We also started clinicals on a new floor a few weeks ago - a respiratory floor. Which means that the patients are almost all vented, trached or both. The major joy of the respiratory floor is when you have to suction a patient. You're basically sticking a suction tube through the hole of the trach and pushing it all the way down the trachea until the patient starts to cough. They are essentially coughing up their secretions that they normally wouldn't be able to cough up. You then start to pull back the tube (slowly so that you actually catch the secretions) while working the suction aspect. This is a general, layman's view but believe me..it aint all it's cracked up to be. Lord help you if you have a really congested patient.
I've been having a really good time in clinical, though. I am a tube feeding Queen (atleast with the PEG tube). While we may seem to "only" be hanging the feeding or "food", it's important to check for the placement of the tube, if there is any residual and the patency of the tube. If you have any issues with any of these things, you have a problem. The tube is also used to give medications (pills aren't given whole but have to be crushed) and there's a method for that too.
Yesterday, I spend a day in the cardiac catherization lab. Working on a cardiac floor, I'm always sending and receiving patients back from cardiac cath but I had never been in one before and the experience was great. I was able to see the heart in all of it's glory! I also was able to see a patient's aortic aneurysm. Talk about scary! Next week, I spend a day in the OR and then sometime in April, I got to endoscopy. Considering how a classmate described her day in endo as viewing rectums all day, that should be interesting.
Right now, I'm just waiting to hear back from my applications for nursing externships. In between the 1st and 2nd year, I can do an externship at a hospital, working on the floor with a nurse preceptor. It's a great experience to spend a few weeks working with a nurse and to see her day on the floor. For all of my applications, my top choices were the ICU, Cardiac and Neuro floors. I have an interview in 2 weeks at a large teaching hospital and I'm excited. It's my 2nd choice (as of now) so I'm pretty psyched. I'll post later how everything turns out.
Well, it's off to study. Got an exam next Tuesday on Metabolism (which includes, all the Hepatitis diseases, the Liver, Gallbladder, Pancreas and that crazy disease called Diabetes). Don't we just love school?
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