RN on the neuro unit towards the end of our clincials: So, do you know where you wanna work?
Me (in my head): NOT HERE!
Me (out loud): Well I know where I don't want to work. Ortho was definitely not my favorite. I'm not really sure.
I could see how med surg would give you tons of clinical and time management skills. There's also a huge variety so you probably wouldn't get bored. Of course that also means you have know a lot about a bunch of different disease processes.
Ortho was just incredibly boring for me and I am definitely not an ortho nurse!
Neuro was actually more interesting as I look back. I enjoy the knowledge behind neuro and brain/cognitive stuff is more interesting to me than a lot of other things. Neuro exams are kind of interesting, but I'm not sure I would do neuro long term because sometimes the patient's are just screwing with you... and that's annoying.
Labor and delivery was obviously my true love, which I hoped it would be. It has just enough excitement and down time (usually) that I don't think I would be bored or exhausted constantly. There's all sorts of new skills to learn with reading fetal monitoring strips and participating in c-sections all that jazz.
Mental health is hard for me. I really liked some of it and I reaaallly didn't like other parts. I liked being on the youth unit and sitting in on outpatient adolescent groups, so I could see myself working with adolescents, especially teen girls. But I think that if I were going to do mental health I'd really rather be a NP that does counseling or therapy. But I'm not going to go to school for that... so that's kind of a moot point. Regardless, there are people with mental illness everywhere so mental health will be useful in any nursing.
I'm excited to do an ER observation this fall because I'm also super interested in working in the ER.
Peds is pretty interesting and I think it would be good from the aspect that I like kids, but unfortunately kids come with their own parents and sometimes they're hard to deal with. Also, IV starts on kids freak me out.
So the current answer... I STILL HAVE NO FREAKING CLUE.
I'll let you know.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Still fairly organized!
I just wanted to write and check in on my organization strategies! Midway through the third semester and they're still working pretty darn well!
I'm still using my ical for the majority of my due dates/etc. Then I plug them into my paper planner.
I'm also still using checklists for what's due each week (with due dates)
I'm still doing pretty good with submitting things on time! Only missed a few and that's mostly because I think my brain is just completely fried!!
What organization strategies do you use??
I'm still using my ical for the majority of my due dates/etc. Then I plug them into my paper planner.
Monthly view
Weekly view
I'm still doing pretty good with submitting things on time! Only missed a few and that's mostly because I think my brain is just completely fried!!
What organization strategies do you use??
Summer Semester Part 1 Labor and Delivery and Mental Health!
Whew! Summer's on its way to being over and I never wrote about the first half of my summer semester!! (Or the end of spring for that matter).
From the middle of May to the end of June I was in my Maternity and Mental Health clinicals!
I only had about 5 weeks of each sadly (well sad about L&D being short, not so much about mental health).
Labor and Delivery:
I sadly only got to spend about 2 full days in L&D which sucked because I LOVED it, like I was pretty sure I would. The hospital we had clinicals at is considered a large trauma center so there is a high risk OB unit and therefore much more high risk L&D than other smaller hospitals. There are about 15 L&D rooms and 2 ORs.
I saw two inductions, both with epidurals. I didn't get to see the delivery on my first mom. The second mom I got to witness her vaginal delivery (in four pushes none the less!).
I saw two c-sections when I was doing my NICU observation and pretty much all I can say about c-sections is... UGH violent. They just seem so, brutal the way they rip the mom's apart, cut them, everything.
Procedures accomplished:
- Immediate assessment on baby
- Baby bath
- New baby shots
- Antibiotic ointment in baby's eyes
- In and out catheter on mom
- PP assessment on mom
- Fetal monitor interpretation
- Vitals on baby
- Footprinting baby
Postpartum:
We spent 3 days on the postpartum unit which is definitely a much different pace. Much slower, and more boring in my opinion. Tons of time to work on breastfeeding with moms though, which I did enjoy. You do get a chance to do lots of assessments on babies, though which I didn't have any experience with before. It broke my heart to see the babies being sent to the nursery though. I'd say that it was split about 50/50 on mom's rooming in vs sending their kids to the nursery. The ones that basically lived in the nursery because mom was "tired" pulled at my heart strings. I'm like.. but its this brand new, squishy baby! So that was hard as well.
Procedures accomplished:
- Breastfeeding assistance
- Multiple assessments on newborns
- Change diapers
- Post circumcision care
Observation in the NICU and ultrasounds:
- I got to follow around two different nurses who were called to c-sections where they perceived that baby may have some difficulty. I loved this part of the NICU nurses job, and I think it'd be awesome. But then we took one baby up and the nurse basically became the baby's nurse and she was attempting to start an IV on the baby and that part of a NICU nurse's job is NOT FOR ME. They are so tiny.. and I don't know. Just not my thing. I also watched a PICC line inserted into a baby which was kind weird.
My other observation was with the ultrasound techs in the clinic. So I basically just watched them perform ultrasounds all morning. It was sort of interesting, but also kind of boring to me. Interesting to find out that their job is HARD though, they are the ones who may find out if there has been a fetal demise, if there are anomalies, etc, etc. So it is not all happiness and rainbows.
Mental Health:
Mental health, mental health. I'm still not sure how I feel about this clinical. At times I really liked it and found it very interesting and at other times it was SO BORING and I felt like it was pointless. We did see some interesting cases like mania, schizophrenia, psychosis, etc. So I did enjoy that, because the human brain and mental illness fascinates me.
Our clinicals basically consisted of being assigned a patient, reading their usually 2-3 inch thick hard chart to get information for our care plans and then sitting down to talk with the patients. We were practicing our therapeutic communication (which I found SUPER HARD in the beginning, but it does get easier), and allow the patient to tell their story to someone. I think a lot of students didn't like it because they felt that we weren't "helping them", but I don't know, I hope maybe we helped a little. Or at least we broke up the monotony.
After we accomplished that some of the students would sit around with the patients. One day we colored with a woman who was actively having auditory and visual hallucinations, so that was interesting to see. And another day we did a puzzle with a woman.
I also got to spend one day on the youth unit with two teenage girls which I found quite interesting and another day observing outpatient groups of teens. I definitely feel that if I were going to be a psych nurse I would want it to be with adolescents, because I enjoyed that much more than adults.
Procedures accomplished:
- Vitals
- Mental status exams
(Yeah, that's it)
Care plans:
OH DEAR GOODNESS they were so long for this class. Like 14-20 pages. We were required to do a care plan, mental status exam and a couple of process recordings. The process recordings I felt were incredibly hard because in them you basically write down, verbatim what you said, what they said and what therapeutic techniques you were using (or not using). Sooooo much writing and paperwork.
Overall, I loooooved going to the hospital for L&D each morning, and pretty much dreaded mental health, although I usually ended up enjoying it at least a little bit.
I loved finally being in the setting I could see myself working in (L&D) but was sad that I had such little time to spend and that we couldn't do more.
I do think that the therapeutic communication techniques we learned in mental health will be invaluable in any sort of nursing because communicating with patient is a huge part of a nurse's job. Not to mention that people with mental illnesses are everywhere, in every type of nursing, so it's good to have exposure to that.
Have you already done mental health or L&D? What did you think??
From the middle of May to the end of June I was in my Maternity and Mental Health clinicals!
I only had about 5 weeks of each sadly (well sad about L&D being short, not so much about mental health).
Labor and Delivery:
I sadly only got to spend about 2 full days in L&D which sucked because I LOVED it, like I was pretty sure I would. The hospital we had clinicals at is considered a large trauma center so there is a high risk OB unit and therefore much more high risk L&D than other smaller hospitals. There are about 15 L&D rooms and 2 ORs.
I saw two inductions, both with epidurals. I didn't get to see the delivery on my first mom. The second mom I got to witness her vaginal delivery (in four pushes none the less!).
I saw two c-sections when I was doing my NICU observation and pretty much all I can say about c-sections is... UGH violent. They just seem so, brutal the way they rip the mom's apart, cut them, everything.
Procedures accomplished:
- Immediate assessment on baby
- Baby bath
- New baby shots
- Antibiotic ointment in baby's eyes
- In and out catheter on mom
- PP assessment on mom
- Fetal monitor interpretation
- Vitals on baby
- Footprinting baby
Postpartum:
We spent 3 days on the postpartum unit which is definitely a much different pace. Much slower, and more boring in my opinion. Tons of time to work on breastfeeding with moms though, which I did enjoy. You do get a chance to do lots of assessments on babies, though which I didn't have any experience with before. It broke my heart to see the babies being sent to the nursery though. I'd say that it was split about 50/50 on mom's rooming in vs sending their kids to the nursery. The ones that basically lived in the nursery because mom was "tired" pulled at my heart strings. I'm like.. but its this brand new, squishy baby! So that was hard as well.
Procedures accomplished:
- Breastfeeding assistance
- Multiple assessments on newborns
- Change diapers
- Post circumcision care
Observation in the NICU and ultrasounds:
- I got to follow around two different nurses who were called to c-sections where they perceived that baby may have some difficulty. I loved this part of the NICU nurses job, and I think it'd be awesome. But then we took one baby up and the nurse basically became the baby's nurse and she was attempting to start an IV on the baby and that part of a NICU nurse's job is NOT FOR ME. They are so tiny.. and I don't know. Just not my thing. I also watched a PICC line inserted into a baby which was kind weird.
My other observation was with the ultrasound techs in the clinic. So I basically just watched them perform ultrasounds all morning. It was sort of interesting, but also kind of boring to me. Interesting to find out that their job is HARD though, they are the ones who may find out if there has been a fetal demise, if there are anomalies, etc, etc. So it is not all happiness and rainbows.
Mental Health:
Mental health, mental health. I'm still not sure how I feel about this clinical. At times I really liked it and found it very interesting and at other times it was SO BORING and I felt like it was pointless. We did see some interesting cases like mania, schizophrenia, psychosis, etc. So I did enjoy that, because the human brain and mental illness fascinates me.
Our clinicals basically consisted of being assigned a patient, reading their usually 2-3 inch thick hard chart to get information for our care plans and then sitting down to talk with the patients. We were practicing our therapeutic communication (which I found SUPER HARD in the beginning, but it does get easier), and allow the patient to tell their story to someone. I think a lot of students didn't like it because they felt that we weren't "helping them", but I don't know, I hope maybe we helped a little. Or at least we broke up the monotony.
After we accomplished that some of the students would sit around with the patients. One day we colored with a woman who was actively having auditory and visual hallucinations, so that was interesting to see. And another day we did a puzzle with a woman.
I also got to spend one day on the youth unit with two teenage girls which I found quite interesting and another day observing outpatient groups of teens. I definitely feel that if I were going to be a psych nurse I would want it to be with adolescents, because I enjoyed that much more than adults.
Procedures accomplished:
- Vitals
- Mental status exams
(Yeah, that's it)
Care plans:
OH DEAR GOODNESS they were so long for this class. Like 14-20 pages. We were required to do a care plan, mental status exam and a couple of process recordings. The process recordings I felt were incredibly hard because in them you basically write down, verbatim what you said, what they said and what therapeutic techniques you were using (or not using). Sooooo much writing and paperwork.
Overall, I loooooved going to the hospital for L&D each morning, and pretty much dreaded mental health, although I usually ended up enjoying it at least a little bit.
I loved finally being in the setting I could see myself working in (L&D) but was sad that I had such little time to spend and that we couldn't do more.
I do think that the therapeutic communication techniques we learned in mental health will be invaluable in any sort of nursing because communicating with patient is a huge part of a nurse's job. Not to mention that people with mental illnesses are everywhere, in every type of nursing, so it's good to have exposure to that.
Have you already done mental health or L&D? What did you think??
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