First Week Complete! Tired feet.
Ya girl finished her first week of clinical integration! And my feet are exhausted. As recently discussed in my previous post about clinical integration, whenever my assigned nurse preceptor works, I work. Thankfully, my nurse has day shifts and her schedule is really consistent. As some of you may know, not all nurses have some kind of consistent schedule from week to week.
This first week has been pretty nice in terms of being exposed to various nursing skills. My nurse preceptor is really great an definitely has an efficient system to the way she gets her work done. She is a very go-go-go type of person which I really admire. Yea, she likes to get things done fast, but she also does things as precisely as she can, and she still has time to crack jokes with her patients and her co-workers.
So far, I've been able to observe peripheral IV insertion, assist in crash cart daily checks, observe an endoscopy and endoscopic ultrasound, assist in taking health histories, taking vitals, and post-procedural routines (hooking up to blood pressure machine and O2 saturation for constant monitoring, placing leads on a patient for EKG readings, disconnecting lines and removing IVs, charting, etc.) It's kind of interesting being in the PACU (post-anesthesia care unit) because I've been able to see the process of these routine (and sometimes tedious) health histories for pre-op as well as the discharge process during post-op.
When the day dies down usually after lunchtime, my preceptor would continue to teach me and take me to the ICU (intensive care unit) to show me other things. We went over blood transfusions (how the orders are placed, how to check to make sure the right blood is going into the right patient, how to prime the tube, what to look out for if the patient is having a hemolytic reaction, etc.), witnessed a patient who was undergoing terminal extubation (essentially, this patient's family has agreed to withdraw the patient off mechanical ventilation at the end of life), assessed PICC lines, CVPs (central venous pressure), central lines, and more.
Really appreciating my preceptor's willingness to teach so far and hope I can continue to learn and hopefully gain more confidence and skill to do more things on my own.
As for now... these feet need to rest. Have a great weekend, everyone!
Sincerely,
Meagan