Clinical Day: 2
Today was a lot more fun than the last day.
It began when my friends and I walked into the hospital and straight to our conference room. Immediately our instructor said we would be seeing our first real patients with another classmate and we would be taking vital signs for the first time.
um…..terrifying might describe what I felt. We haven’t learned all the vital signs yet, we still have to go over them in class.
So anyways, after our instructor left to get reports, the other 6 of us in the room freaked out and began to think of what to do. I gradually came to accept that we had to listen to direction and that if we needed help with anything, there would be many nurses on the floor willing to help.
Me and my friend walked into the first room and met an elderly man who was still very sleepy. He willingly let us take his pulse and pulse ox. We took respiration BP and temp. Then we thanked him and left the room so he could sleep more. The next room we went into was a young woman who had surgery performed on her leg. We assessed her pain level, took her vitals and thanked her for being understanding of our learning. She laughed when she found out she was our second patient ever.
Next it was on to bed baths and charting. I changed the linen in a bed with an occupied woman, then performed a full bed bath on her. She was a very kind elderly lady. She talked to me about football and how she couldn’t wait to see “those Giants kick the patriots asses!” She was funny but picky about what she liked done. I took it as a learning experience and performed to the best of my ability.
I got yelled at by someone for the first time. The patient was going in and out of conscious states so they were NPO and being tube fed. The patients parents were there and yelled at me when I came in to assess the tubing. Of course I had no clue what to say but I stood my ground and told them that I was not familiar to the case and that I would get the nurse in charge of the patient. The nurse was very understanding and took care of the rest of it. The family wanted to take the patient out of the hospital against Medical advice. Later in the day I passed the room and the patient was gone. The nurse told me the family was moving the patient to another hospital.
Later on in the day my group made final rounds on patients and served some people lunch. I met some guy nurses which were really nice and pretty chill, they snuck me into the supply closet to show me where everything was because as students we are not allowed in there. I think they took sympathy on me for being yelled at or something lol.
We were dismissed later on in the day and I went back to my dorm, showered and threw my scrubs into a bag to be washed however I still can’t get the smell of bed bath out of my room. I febreezed it and even threw the scrubs in the wash but the smell is just lingering. No one else gets it though so it might just be me haha.
I’ll post more later but right now I’ve got to sleep, I’ve got my fundamentals lab in the morning and we are learning Vital Signs :)
