First hospital clinical!

It went well...pretty much what I expected, and at the same time, not quite what I expected.

Because our class is larger, we're split into 2 clinical/lab groups.  My group was assigned to one of the general med units.  We made our way up with our supervisor and waited as a group in the hallway as he checked in at the nurse's station to see what we'd be doing for today.  As it turns out, we were on bath duty...which didn't really surprise me, because we gotta start somewhere!  We were all a bit nervous, so we convinced him to let us work in pairs (and some of us added a 3rd person for additional manpower) and were assigned to different patients.  The patient my partner, A, and I were assigned to was on respiration precautions, so we were required to not only wash hands and glove up, we were in gowns and masks as well.  We confidently gathered our bathing and bed-making supplies, and headed on in.

We introduced ourselves, just as we'd practiced with the dummies and each other in lab, but it was much easier talking to a real patient.  Our patient was very sweet, but also very sick.  Bless her heart, she put up with A and I pestering her for almost an hour.  It took us that long to get her bath done and her bed changed, because we had to take frequent breaks for her sake.  She never complained, but I think we wore her out.  After we were finished, we changed the TV channel for her, put her call button at her hand, and left her to take a nap.

After everyone was finished, we retreated to the unit's breakroom with our supervisor and rehashed what we'd done and seen.  I think we were all not surprised at bathing duties, but at the same time, some of us were surprised that we were allowed to work with such frail and fragile patients.

So I've been checked off on vitals, bed baths, bed changes, am learning how to do various body region assessments, and have completed 1 clinical where I had an actual patient...but yet I still feel like I'm playing dress-up when I'm wearing scrubs and my name badge and have my stethoscope around my neck.  I'm assuming that feeling will go away soon...but for now, it's totally there  :-)

So...I survived my first TNI clinical, didn't hurt anyone, or do anything so grossly wrong that I got banned from the unit.  I'd say that was a good day!

And now I get to spend the next few days studying for my Community Health exam and my 1st Med Calc quiz, both on Monday.  Nervous!  Not exactly sure what to expect for Community Health.  And Med Calc being math, and math being so much *not* my forte...yeah.  I'm going to review practice problems after reviewing practice problems, then review some more practice problems.  I have 3 chances to pass...and I want to pass the 1st one so I don't have to deal with it...at least not until next semester.

Happy Hump Day...it's all downhill to the weekend!