The last weeks of June and into the beginning of July were quite a stressful time for me... I won't go into great detail, but life was a bit overwhelming, and school was very intense - midterm exam and paper time - so I am quite grateful to feel like I have climbed my way up and over the summit of this semester and now have more freedom to actually breathe and catch up on much needed sleep this past week. Through it all, however, I have found myself loving the hours spent studying because I do love the information that I'm learning. For example, we learned that when a patient goes into asystole ("flat line") you CANNOT shock the patient -- something that TV and movies lead us to believe is possible. Asystole indicates that there is no cardiac electrical impulse, and using an AED to shock a patient can only be done if there is electrical activity to shock back into a working rhythm. Interesting, right? I am looking forward to the day that I can sit through Grey's Anatomy and rattle off all the different things that they are doing/saying incorrectly. So overall, my classes have been very integrative and intriguing, and I really do appreciate the knowledge that we are gaining. Labs have also been a great experience, and the past week has been spent on learning how to properly and accurately administer medication -- a crucial aspect of our role on the health care team. We learned how to draw up medication in various syringes, and practiced giving our dummies shots. I even got to give myself a subcutaneous shot -- a TB shot for those who have ever had one (but I gave myself a shot of saline) -- and I did it successfully on the first try! I was so proud of my little wheal (the bubble of solution that you are supposed to see underneath the skin). We also have been learning how to calculate and administer IV medications, but unfortunately we won't learn how to actually insert an IV needle until the end of the year. Our clinical experiences have been great too - I have worked with the same gentleman the past couple weeks and have really loved getting to know him. He has been very patient with me and has allowed me to practice my new skills that I'm learning in lab on him (although he laughs at me and gives me a hard time with it!) including listening to heart, lung, and bowel sounds. Never thought I'd get so excited about listening for and hearing bowel sounds! haha. Clinical really has been a great opportunity for me, and I feel very comfortable on the unit, and am gaining more and more confidence with my knowledge base and my objective and subjective opinions as the weeks progress. I have to put together a care plan this coming week for my patient, and it's a very detailed process... going through all his nursing diagnoses (NOT medical diagnoses -- we can only state what human responses our patients are having to their actual diagnosis) and then analyzing his status and selecting appropriate outcomes and interventions that we would implement if we were his nurse. Many people don't realize how much autonomy nurses really have... yes, there are things we must obtain doctor's orders for in order to treat our patients, but there are many things we can do independently using our own critical thinking skills to care for our patients. I have gained so much more respect for RNs these past 6 weeks that I've been in classes and clinical. And this is only the beginning! I just enrolled in classes for this fall, and I'm really looking forward to them. I am taking Pathophysiology, Pharmacology, clinical rotations first in Mental Health Nursing and then in Labor&Delivery. I'm also taking an elective - Community Outreach in Urban Baltimore, where we will have the opportunity to work in outpatient clinics in the community and learn more about working in underserved populations, which I am really looking forward to. There is great need in Baltimore for greater access to health care, so I am grateful for the opporunity to help in any way I can. I'm also applying to be a mentor at a local residential treatment center - reminiscent of my time back in Salt Lake - that I am really looking forward to.
Amidst all the craziness of school, I was so happy to have my dad in town to visit last weekend! He came in to spend the 4th of July with me, and we had a great time. Friday I had off from school, so we toured around Baltimore and visited Fort McHenry - the location of the original "Star-Spangled Banner" that inspired our national anthem. Then we took a beautiful drive up through Maryland to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and visited the battlegrounds. It was actually quite an experience - we happened to be there on the anniversary of the 3rd day of battle, so there were many people there taking "battle walks" and touring the grounds, learning all the details of the battle. I'm not a battle enthusiast by any means, but I definitely gained a greater appreciation for the significance of the battle and appreciated our time spent there. We then had our first Maryland experience of eating steamed crabs! It was quite a sight. It wasn't pretty, but we did find a way to crack the shells open eat the delicious meat hiding inside. Saturday we spent touring Washington DC and enjoyed a spectacular fireworks show that night. Thousands of people had gathered for the holiday celebration, so it was a bit chaotic, but we managed to find a great place in the mall to sit and watch the most intense display of fireworks I have ever seen. What a sight. And what a memory. Here are a few photos from our day spent in DC:
[The Washington Monument]
[The Lincoln Memorial]
[The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers]So... 3 more weeks until the end of this semester, and then it's a MUCH needed (and may I say deserved?) break! We have the majority of August off, and I've decided to take a little vacation to GREECE with one of my closest friends from home. I'm SO excited -- it's been a dream of mine to walk through the Acropolis and relax on the beach in Mykonos and explore the narrow streets of Santorini! But until then, school will have my full and complete attention... so hopefully I'll have time to post soon! Until then, take care all!
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