Clinical

Dear Diary:
Last week we started clinicals.

1. We will be doing one night in the operating room.
2. We will be doing one night in the PACU (post anesthesia care unit)
3. The rest of the time will be on the urology floor.

Our first night we got a tour of the OR area. We then met a patient and had to have a conversation with the patient and write a report on it. My patient was someone I transported via ambulance a few weeks earlier. It was good to see the patient thriving and doing well. We didn’t think he/she was going to make it when they came in by ambulance (they were unconscious for the transport)

My next patient was one from a nursing home. Stage 4 pressure ulcer that had to be packed and a wound-vac placed on it to drain the blood and fluids so it would heal correctly. We got to see a gastric tube irrigation and I did some oral care on the patient. She was not happy with me doing that and called me "a very pushy man" for trying so hard to do her oral care. The daughter was grateful that we tried.

The clinical was a bit nerve-wracking in the sense that we have been nursing students for 7 weeks and we are having all of this stuff thrown at us. The nurses on the floor gave us a report like we were ready to graduate. Technical and medical terms flying around, abbreviations. Lots to take in.

Tonight we have our second test in fundamentals. I think I wrote about the first test being 23 chapters worth of material and half of the class failing. We’ll see how tonight goes.