Last Week in the CSL

As much as I've enjoyed learning the basic skills in the Clinical Simulation Lab, I also feel like it's time to move on to the clinical setting. I don't feel too much more prepared than I did a month ago, but I do realize that most of the skills, both technical and interpersonal, that we're going to develop will come from trial-and-error in a "real life" setting. This week we learned how to put in foley catheters and care for wounds. Catheterizing was surprisingly easy (well, on mannequin genitalia), but I just feel like between the patient's unease in addition to my own when I first do it (which may not even be this semester), it's going to be Awkward City. Each of us doing the catheter for both male and female genitalia took most of the morning, so we didn't get to wound care until after lunch. (P.S I love that already it's not a problem to discuss wound care and catheters and God knows what before, during, or after eating haha) Again, it was pretty simple, but I feel like it's going to be a different story when you see (and smell, honestly) a person's wound, particularly if it's a nasty one. The idea doesn't bother me though because I knew that's what I was getting myself into from the day I decided on a career in the medical field. I'm going to miss the comfort and community that we had being in the CSL, and I'm definitely going to miss walking around on campus in my scrubs because that makes me feel like the coolest thing ever haha but I also can't wait to move on to less comfortable but definitely more relevant things in the nursing home.

Clinicals Week Five

This week in clinicals was spent learning how to administer medications, which I’m actually really excited to do in a real, clinical setting; I think it will be really intimidating the first time I give a shot (especially in some of the sites on the body, which I’ll get to in a minute), but it was oddly fun. We started with oral medications and other forms like transdermal patches, which were interesting, but intramuscular and subcutaneous injections were where the fun started (because we finally got to use needles! Like real healthcare professionals! I felt so legit). It wasn’t all fun and games though; I’m seriously concerned about sufficiently getting air bubbles out of solutions before injecting them because if you don’t, that will straight up kill someone. Terrifying. Of course accidental needle sticks are a real possibility, and I actually read somewhere that, statistically speaking, it will happen to every nurse at some point in his/her career. Also terrifying. We practiced drawing up the dosages (more technical than you would think, but easy enough. Again, I felt so legitimate.) and giving injections on fake skin; supposedly “back in the day” nursing students practiced on each other, and I haven’t yet decided if that would be a good or bad thing. We practiced finding the injection sites on each other and on the dummies; everyone has gotten a deltoid injection (in the upper arm) with vaccines, but there are tons of other sites (the big muscle in the thigh, one near the hipbone, and one right where the back and butt meet). Even though hitting bone or a vein (you actually have to draw back on the syringe when you put it in the muscle to make sure you aren’t in a vein. I swear I’ve never noticed anyone doing that, and I watch when I get shots; they must just be that good at it!) wouldn’t be pleasant, what was the scariest, specifically about the location near the buttocks, is the possibility of hitting the nearby sciatic nerve (hit that and your patient is going to be in major pain. ::salutes and says “Major Pain:: sorry, How I Met Your Mother reference) or some major arteries (“Major Arteries.” Man, I’m on a roll!). All insecurities (and jokes) aside, I enjoyed giving the injections to the fake skin, and I hope I’m as good at it on a real person. Last year the first-semester clinicals students helped give flu shots on campus (I know because I recognized the guy who gave me mine as having been in my class the semester before haha), and I really hope we get the chance to do that this year; it would be intimidating, but I feel like after just a day of doing it, we would really have the hang of it. I’d rather learn get practice with it on young, healthy patients so I’m more comfortable doing it with sick, possibly frail elderly patients in the nursing home this semester.



While I ate lunch, I worked on some of my other assignments, did some studying, and refilled on coffee; I feel like that’s about my normal routine these days haha once we met back with our clinical group, we had our medical calculation test; now, I’m not a math person and never have been, but I did enjoy the objectivity of the math test after how subjective some of our other tests have been and will be. And I won’t complain about a relatively easy 100 either :) While each person individually went over their tests and evaluations for the week with our clinical instructor, the rest of us had a chance to talk and get to know each other better. I really do like my group; I love that we all get along so well and work together even though we all met only about a month ago. I hope that kind of camaraderie will be a theme throughout the rest of nursing school and in my career as a nurse.

Week Three

After not having our clinical last Monday because of Labor Day (mind you, I was still doing work and studying for classes that day anyway), it was nice to be back this week. Since the lecture that corresponds with our lab is on Tuesday and we had lab Monday, the first two weeks we did skills before having learned about them; now that we’re technically a week “behind,” we’ll discuss the skills before actually trying to do them in the lab, which is preferable. This week we learned about oxygenation (how to decide when to use and how to properly apply a nasal cannula, face mask, etc.), suctioning, and tracheotomy care. The skills were pretty easy (on the mannequins) and went pretty quickly, but I feel doing things like trach care will be a totally different ball game on a real patient. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed the time in the lab and did well, building my confidence.

Speaking of…my confidence is like a constant roller coaster these days, I mean more than usual. Now that we’re all in Upper Division, the competition should pretty much be over. Yes, we’re competing for jobs against someone (and since I plan to leave South Carolina, I’m probably not competing with a single person in my class for a job), but for the most part, as long as we graduate, it won’t matter if our GPA was a tenth of a point higher or if we had one more extracurricular activity. I feel like now we should focus on actually learning the material (which grades are not necessarily a reflection of, by the way), bettering ourselves as nurses, and helping each other through instead of worrying about being better; if we all graduate the same, but someone is badly representing our university and the nursing profession, no one wins. Now, I’m a perfectionist, so usually I’m not totally satisfied with anything less than an A, and I got good grades in high school, so there’s already been some adjustment not making straight-A’s in college, but for the most part, I’m happy with my success in college so far. I realize I sacrificed some experiences and grades to study abroad, but in the long-run of life, that was much more important than even a few tenths of a GPA. And even though I’m never happy about a low grade, I’m usually happy when I get a grade that reflects the effort I put into whatever the assignment was; what always screws me up is when I compare myself with other people and start feeling self-conscious. In the end, I got a B+ on the exam; not an A, but considering what I put in and how I felt on the exam, I was happy with that grade. Comparing with others is such a Catch-22 because I felt simultaneously more confident when I did better than someone and less confident when I did worse, obviously; I've learned that you don't get to feel great doing better than others if you don't want the reverse feeling when you do worse than someone. My goal is to stop comparing myself with others and just be happy with myself and my accomplishments. No, a little friendly competition isn’t a bad thing, but when it gets to the point where people turn every little thing into a competition, it has gone too far.

Anyway, back to my clinical day. The Student Nurses’ Association on campus had its semi-annual Back-to-School Bash from 4:30-7, and since I was still up on campus when we got done with clinicals at 2:30 and was planning to go to it anyway, I decided to help them with set up. In the mean time, I got some work done in the computer lab in the nursing building, so already it had been a long, productive day. Helping set up was also a good way to meet some of the other students in SNA, particularly some in Upper Division with me; throughout the Bash, I also talked with some of my professors, which is always a good experience. I was still wearing my scrubs from clinicals, and I honestly feel like between that and being an Upper Division student, I’m really being taken much more seriously than I was even a month ago. It’s really nice to already get respect wearing the uniform, so I can’t wait until I feel more like I deserve it and am more confident in my abilities. After I had spent some time at the Bash and before it was over, I met with my pharmacology professor and a few of my classmates to go over our first exam; it was nice to finally meet the professor (my closest friends in UD with me already knew her from taking one of her classes last semester), to see what I got right/wrong (some educated guessing happened on that exam haha), and again to mingle with some of the other Upper Division students. Then I helped break down from the Bash, which meant I spent a whopping 11 hours at the College of Nursing in one day. Long day, but definitely a good, productive one; I met 3 professors, some of my nursing peers, and talked with some other professors/students I hadn’t seen in a while, in addition to feeling like a more appreciated part of nursing.