Confessions of a registered nurse (Confessions of a student nurse): Student nurse stories

I hate being right

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 03:11:27 GMT

When she said she would overnight my transcripts on Thursday, I wanted to believe her. I really did. But I knew she was full of it, and I was right. At noon today, I got a call from the woman at the Board of Nursing letting me know that they still do not have my affidavit. I give up. I wanted to make this posting funny but seem to have misplaced my sense of humor. Don't worry, once this mess gets cleaned up, I'll find my humor again. And I will use it at the expense of the idiots who have made the last few weeks a living hell. Buckle your seat belts, administrators at my nursing school, and remember, you started it.

The good news is that I will not lose my job over this. My manager seems pretty laid back and understanding, and she said that I can continue with my internship, I just can't have patient contact. So until I get my GN license, I will be shadowing a nurse instead of doing hands-on stuff. This is completely fair and I really appreciate their willingness to work with me. The bad news is that this makes me look like a complete idiot!! I met one of the other girls in the internship with me, and she is taking her licensing exam on Monday. She graduated at the same time as me, but her school was able to figure out how to get the envelope into the slit on the side of the mailbox, while my school is still working on that task. So I will not even have my Graduate Nurse license and my co-intern will be a Registered Nurse. LOL..... looking good so far at the new job, huh?

Too many hoops!

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:05:10 GMT

I wrote out this long blog entry explaining to you guys why I haven't been posting lately. But after reading it before I posted it, I realized that is was way too negative and depressing to make you guys read. So I decided I will just give you the basic facts about what is going on, and I will post something again soon once everything is worked out and I am in a better mood.
~ After fixing the transcript fiasco two weeks ago, I thought my transcripts were in the mail and my Graduate Nurse (GN) License would be issued any day.
~ A woman in the HR department at my hospital called on Thursday to let me know that I am not officially a GN on the TX Board of Nursing website. I checked it out and she is correct. I called the TX Board and it ends up that my school never sent my transcript or the affidavit my dean was supposed to sign on the date of graduation. I gave her an addressed, stamped envelope and even included a sticky arrow pointing to the line she needed to sign. The directions were highlighted- there was no way for this to go wrong. But it did! She never put it in the mail.
~ I called the dean and her assistant and told them that they needed to overnight my transcripts to TX. The assistant said she would, but at this point, that is of little comfort to me.
~ So here's my current situation. Even if they did overnight my information on Thursday, it will take ten business days for me to be issued my GN license. I start tomorrow. What a great start to a new job, huh?! I'm not sure what they are going to do- they can't delay the internship program for me, so are they going to kick me out? I guess I'll find out tomorrow....

Seriously?!

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 22:47:41 GMT

I answered my phone this morning and heard, "Hi Katie, this is bla bla bla, the dean of your nursing school." Why is the dean of my school calling? Within a second, I had all sorts of possible reasons floating through my mind- she was calling to congratulate me on having my site featured on MSN, she was calling to say they missed me at graduation, or maybe even to personally thank me for all of my suggestions throughout my year at her school. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Four days after graduation, the dean was calling to inform me that there is a problem with my transcripts, and that they will not be able to release them for me to take my licensing exam. Yes, four days AFTER graduation they realized this error. My first thought was, “Danielle, this is not funny!” But I remembered that Danielle was in orientation at her new job and could not be calling to play a practical joke on me. I checked the number on my phone and realized that it was definitely someone from my school calling. I sat there quietly for a second, then asked, "I don't mean to be rude, but ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" No, she was not kidding. My morning was spent making frantic phone calls and faxes to fix their error. My mom came to my rescue and drove all over town to hand deliver the transcripts my school had misplaced. And all of this craziness was just a few hours before my "Personality interview." Ironically, one of the questions during the interview was, "Do you respect authority figures?" Yes, when they are competent! Don't worry, I didn't say that. I know that in any profession I might have to deal with unorganized management, so I guess my school has prepared me for the real world. I just wish they didn’t repeat this same lesson over and over again for their students!

A note to nursing students

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:18:48 GMT

The first day of nursing school. How can those six words cause so much fear, panic, and excitement in the hearts of nursing students everywhere? I will never forget my first day of orientation. I sat there looking around at the seventy-four other students in the room and thought, “They all look so…. confident. Why can’t I be more like them?” They were relaxed and talking to one another, while I sat there praying that I wouldn’t provide the first example of “Dealing with a Code Vomit.” After a few introductions, they brought in a man from the testing center to give us tips on being Accelerated Nursing students. One of the first things he said was, “If you are the type of student who relies on flashcards, you will not make it in this program.” Hmm… where’s the nearest exit door?! I left that first day in tears, convinced that I would never return. We were assigned a few hundred pages to read for our first day of class, so I spent the entire weekend reading, taking notes, crying, and trying to convince myself to quit. With the support of my close friends and family, I decided to stick with it for at least two months and then quit if I still wanted to. Every two months I renewed this little contract with myself, until finally there weren’t two months left. Now that I am finished with nursing school, I am extremely thankful that I stuck it out. I’ll be honest, it was not easy. There were days where I was completely convinced that I had lost my mind. Other days I thought everyone around me had lost theirs. Looking back now, it is probably safe to say that I was right in both instances. ;) I now know that I was definitely not the only one nervous that first day. We all were. Some of us were just better at hiding it than others. Every one of us felt lost or alone at some point throughout our program. So if you are a student nurse and you feel like you are the only one who just “doesn’t get it,” trust me, you are not by yourself! Find some classmates you can get along with and be there for each other. Their support will get you through it.

One of my always-present fears as a student was that I was going to embarrass myself. Unfortunately, this fear became a reality far too often. After a few months I grew accustomed to looking like an idiot and found the strength to laugh at myself. Finding the ability to laugh at yourself is crucial to surviving nursing school. You are not going to be perfect no matter how hard you try! You can read about a procedure over & over in your books or practice with mannequins, but once you are working with real people, things don’t go as planned. Your quick stop in the room to give a medication can turn into a huge ordeal if your patient has explosive diarrhea. Or you might be shaking so badly while giving your first shot that you don’t get the needle all the way in. Suppositories can be slippery and don’t always go where they are supposed to (now THAT is embarrassing!). Always try your best, but don’t beat up on yourself when the end result is not what you hoped for.

I recommend writing about your experiences in school. Any time I go back and read my old postings from my first clinicals, I get a great laugh (see October archives on the right side of my page). It also lets me see how far I have really come. If you need any encouragement or have questions along the way, leave me a comment in my guestbook (upper right corner of my site) and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can! Also, click on the links to PDA Programs or Pharmacology. And if you are a flashcard user, click here. These should help you with your nursing classes. And check out these blogs by other students in the medical field:Nursing Students:
DandDs Mommie            Shelbe
Charis                               Tim
Mmmmkay4Now              Nurse In Progress
Mom of 3 Student Nurse   Gen-X-BSN student
It's Almost Heaven            Jayleigh's Journal

Med Student:
The Future Dr. Cara

Radiology Tech students:
Dustin
Kristin

Good luck! Let me know how I can help you on your journey to become a nurse!

Katie, GN

Little Brat and Old Rascal

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:49:50 GMT

There is a long-term care facility in the same hospital as our ER. On occasion, the doctors will send an elderly patient down to the ER for some problem that they are having. Yesterday, Vicki and I had one of the long-term care patients. She was an elderly woman with severe dementia who wanted to be left alone. She was DNR (do not resuscitate) and had what seemed like chronic heart failure or pneumonia, so the doctors wanted to figure out what was going on. This meant that we had this lady for the majority of the day. Most elderly patients, even those with dementia, are easy to work with. This one wasn't. At first she seemed like a sweet old woman, until we tried to put the pulse oximeter on her finger. This is a painless little device that tells us a patient's oxygen saturation.

It looks harmless, right? Well, she did not want us to put it on her finger, so she called us a long list of words, the only ones I can repeat are "Little Brat" for me and "Old Rascal" for Vicky. She pinched Vicky's arm, took a swing at my face, and then grabbed the pulse oximeter and started using it as a whip to hit us. We both stood there in complete shock. Did that cute elderly woman really just attack us and call us those things?! Apparently she could tell what we were thinking, so just to clear up any possible confusion, she began repeating the insults and even added a few more to really make her point.
We went and reported to the doctor that she was being very combative with us. He didn't seem to care or believe us, and told us to go start her IV. We again entered her room and she held up the pulse oximeter to show us that yes, she did still have her weapon. We brought one of the techs in with us to help hold her arm in place, and after getting the whip from her, started preparing her for the IV. Within a few seconds she had hit Vicky and tried to pinch the tech, so I held both of her hands with my hands over her fingers, preventing her from pinching. Vicky was almost ready to start the IV when I suddenly felt this awful pain in the palm of my hand. She had managed to pinch me on my palm, and she was not letting go. She only had a little bit of skin and glove, but those pinches are the ones that hurt the most. I finally managed to get my hand away, but barely had time to look to see if she broke the skin when I saw that the whip was again flying through the air. She had officially won round one. I’ll spare you all the details, but she also won rounds two and three. Vicki finally figured out a solution: she brought the woman a soft teddy bear to cuddle with. The woman chose not to cuddle with the bear but to use it as a weapon instead. Being hit with a soft teddy bear is not painful, so we were able to take care of her without being injured. I wonder if the soft teddy bear trick will work with big angry patients who are detoxing too?

Stupid tape

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:18:51 GMT

Removing an IV is a simple and basic skill that I learned early on in nursing school. You remove the tape holding the IV in place, place a cotton ball over the site where the IV is, and then pull the catheter out and apply pressure with the cotton. The hospital I am working at uses something I have never worked with before called a Statlock.

The Statlock is the blue clamp in the picture. It firmly holds the IV in place better than tape alone. To remove the Statlock, you have to rub the white tape holding in on with alcohol, and then pull it off. We put the Statlock on and then put a lot of clear tape over it to ensure that nothing moves that IV out of place.
Yesterday while starting an IV on a patient, I noticed that he went out of his way to avoid seeing what I was doing. Most patients don't look when I first poke them, but do look over while I am drawing their blood just to see what is going on. This man kept his head turned away and his eyes closed during the whole process. He was not a fan of seeing blood, which I can understand. A few hours later I went back in to remove his IV. I had my cotton ball ready, and I started removing the tape above the Statlock. All of the sudden, the IV tubing fell apart, leaving just the IV in his arm (the green part in the picture below).

Blood started spilling out of the now open IV, so I quickly put pressure on his vein to stop the bleeding. This slowed it down, but did not stop it. I would have taken the IV out right away, which would have solved the problem, but that stupid Statlock thing was still on, and I couldn't get it off. Noticing that his blood was now dripping onto the floor, the man closed his eyes and looked away. Great, my two hundred pound patient is going to faint on me! Thankfully, closing his eyes was enough, and he didn't lose consciousness. One crisis avoided, but I still had blood pooling on the floor. Had I just calmed down and thought clearly, I would have focused more on just putting pressure on the vein to stop the bleeding, but at the moment, I was just focused on getting that IV out. I tried ripping the Statlock thing off without the alcohol, but he yelped in pain (stupid hand hair), so I quit. By the time I got the IV out, it looked like a small animal had been killed next to his bed.
Lesson of the day: Bring your brain and common sense along, even for the "simple" tasks.

Lessons

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 03:28:02 GMT

One of the perks of being an ER nurse is that you get to hear a lot of interesting stories from people who have somehow or another hurt themselves. From these stories, I have learned what not to do:
~ Sit outside drinking nothing but beer all day in 99 degree weather
~ Slide tackle somebody in a parking lot full of broken glass
~ Stick your finger into a pipe to measure its diameter
~ Jump out of a moving car
~ Close the car door with your hand still in it
~ Anything your friend tells you if it starts with the words, "I dare you..."
~ Whatever it is you are currently doing if your friend says, "I need to watch you so I know what to tell the paramedics."

First impressions

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:34:19 GMT

Vicki, my preceptor, is an angel. At the beginning of our shift yesterday, she gathered together IV supplies, sat down at a table in the break room, and told me to start an IV on her so she could teach me how to do it. I started the IV perfectly!! And twelve hours later, Vicki didn't even have a bruise where I put the IV in. This gave me the confidence that I have been lacking over the last year, so I am extremely grateful to her.

My friend John has had an interesting Capstone so far:

On my first day I was talking to my preceptor, Nancy. The charge nurse came over and asked Nancy to verify a death with her (it takes two licensed RN's to verify that a patient has died). We walked into the patient's room and saw an obviously very dead elderly woman. The charge nurse stood there as Nancy felt for a carotid pulse. Suddenly Nancy said, "I know this is weird, but I think I feel a faint pulse." The charge nurse replied, "It can't be, but we had better make sure. I'll put a heart monitor on her and you put a Doppler on the artery." Nancy started with the Doppler and found absolutely nothing, as the woman really was dead. The charge nurse put the monitor leads on the body, then turned her back to us to see the reading. She was getting a flat line (of course). I said to Nancy, "Show me what it would sound like if there were a pulse," and I held out my neck. She stuck the Doppler on me and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of, "whoosh, whoosh." Well, the charge nurse still had her back turned to us and had no idea what was going on, but heard the sound of a wonderful pulse. She turned around and all but threw herself on the poor woman thinking that she was still alive. She grabbed her shoulders and started shaking her. Nancy and I were just stunned. After about two seconds the charge nurse looked over and saw Nancy holding the Doppler on me and said, "What in the %@#% are you doing?! You just gave me a friggin heart attack!" Thankfully, after she calmed down she thought it was funny. She spent the rest of the afternoon telling everyone about it. I certainly made a first impression on that one!

Attack on your eyes?

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:34:08 GMT

Today was an interesting day. Vicki told me to go pick the next patient up from the waiting room, take him or her back to their ER room, and begin their assessment. To complete the assessment, the nurse must document what is going on with the patient so that the doctor can look at the chart and know the majority of the important background information before even entering the room. Most patients in our ER are there for non-emergencies that are simple to describe. "Headache for two days." "Vomited this morning." I confidently picked up my first patient's chart, called her name, and looked down at her reason for visiting. "My navel had a fever last week, and I have an attack on my eyes." Oh great! My first patient is a psych patient. How do I handle this? I don't want to embarrass myself by documenting something like this! While walking the woman towards her room (and looking for a place to hide), I was picturing the doctor gathering all of the ER staff together to laugh at my paperwork after I was done- "Navel fever?!" Crazy nursing student! Then I started thinking that this was some sort of practical joke- they had a nurse from the next shift pretend to be a patient just to see how I'd handle their crazy symptoms. Thankfully, this was not the case. Once I had the patient in her room, I was able to figure everything out- she had a hernia and has auras with her migraines. She just had a creative way of explaining everything!
A few hours later, I got to start my first IV! It didn't exactly go as planned, but it didn't go as bad as I feared either. The patient was a teenager who was extremely dehydrated, and I needed to draw blood and start an IV. I was able to get a vial of blood, but then the vein blew, so Vicki had to poke her again. I felt bad, but she was understanding. Maybe next time?

Amazing!

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 05:48:46 GMT

I had an incredible time at my clinical today! It was a long day- I was at school or in the hospital from 9am-11pm, but it was worth it. I loved almost everything about it. My preceptor Vicki (the nurse I work with) is amazing- she is patient, knows her stuff, and is a wonderful teacher. The chemistry among the staff, including the ER doctors, is fun to be around, and for the first time at any clinical I felt like one of the nurses instead of some idiot hanging around waiting to ask a stupid question. My feet hurt and my back aches, but I am still smiling! It was embarrassing to tell Vicki that I have never started an IV or a catheter on a patient before, and although she was stunned by the news, she said that she could teach me how. Other than that, the only time I really embarrassed myself was when I accidentally walked into a glass window (there was a screen covering it and I thought there was a door there).
Wednesday is the big day- I will actually be starting all the IV's! Keep your fingers crossed for me (and your veins hidden). ;)

Finally!

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 17:03:44 GMT

The big day is finally here- I start my Capstone in the ER tomorrow!! I will be working with one ER nurse, Vicki, for the next five weeks. I will work all of her 12-hour shifts with her, and hopefully learn a lot. Because I will be dealing with patients again, I'm sure I'll have plenty of experiences to write about. I hope that each entry begins with, "Today was amazing..." but as you all know, "Today was so embarrassing..." is much more common on my site. ;)

What goes up must come down

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:49:03 GMT

Although the whole idea of our "leadership and management" clinical puts me in a bad mood, there have been some funny moments. When a doctor is performing a colonoscopy, he puts a lot of air into the intestines. During check-in, the nurses explain this to each patient and tell them that they will not be allowed to leave until the air has started coming back out. It is funny to watch the patients' faces when they realize what this means- they can't leave until the nurses have heard them fart. The men don't seem to mind this so much, but the women turn red or immediately state, "I won't do that here." The nurses always smile and say, "Yes you will!" In the three days I have been in the clinic, I have to say that the nurses have been right every time!

Crazy world?

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:02:24 GMT

The clinical I am in right now is called "Leadership and Management." We were each assigned to a nursing manager, and we have to follow him or her around for sixty-four hours. Most nurse managers do the scheduling, billing, budget, etc. and have very limited contact with the patients. Hmm... I graduate in two months and I still have a ton of skills to learn, yet they are making me follow someone around who doesn't have contact with patients? I would be perfectly fine with spending one or two days with a manager to get a sense of what they do, but eight full days? Wow. The manager I work with runs a GI lab and is wonderful- she is energetic, friendly and great with her staff. However, I really want to learn how to be a nurse!! These last two days are going to look great on my resume if I ever decide to be a receptionist again. But answering phones and compiling blank papers for patient charts? This clinical is starting to stack right up there with our forced volunteering in terms of preparing me to be a good nurse. To make matters worse, every patient who comes into the GI lab has to have an IV started. As soon as I realized this I got really excited- I will finally get to start an IV on a patient!!! One of the nurses used to work on an IV team and was excited to teach me, but my instructor said "no." I was at clinicals to learn how to be a manager, not to learn clinical skills. I won't even begin to tell you what I think about this because I agreed to keep my site family friendly when it was featured last year. I did get to watch a student from another nursing school as she started several IV's today. I don't think I could have possibly been more jealous than I was while watching the nurses teach her how to do IV's. I think I'm going to ask if I can come in after my clinical rotation is over and have her teach me- I don't see how my instructor would ever find out. Ohh... I'm such an evil nursing student, planning to come in to get extra clinical practice behind my teacher's back! Should I feel like I'm breaking the rules by wanting to learn? LOL.. it's a crazy world. Or maybe it's just crazy instructors? I'll let you decide.

ER!!!

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 03:12:49 GMT

I just found out that I get to do my Capstone in the ER!! Capstone is our very last clinical, and it is where we are going to learn the most. We are assigned to a preceptor (an experienced nurse) who agrees to work with us for 180 hours. We work their shifts with them for six weeks. I am extremely excited about this for many reasons, including getting one-on-one attention, working with a nurse who wants to have a student (not one who found out at the start of her shift that she has one), and hopefully finally getting some clinical skills figured out! The ER is going to be an excellent learning opportunity, and I really believe that once I am done with my Capstone, I will be able to confidently go into a job interview and say that I am prepared to be a nurse. I can't wait for July 10th!!

Congratulations Graduates!

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:28:09 GMT

Send me your graduation photo (it does not have to be from nursing school or even recent) and I'll post it here. lilk8tob3@yahoo.com

Helen

Mary

Susan

Jean and Judy

ICCC Nursing Grads

Michelle

Great study tool

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 06:58:57 GMT

You can take practice NCLEX exams at this website.
On the main screen click on "Test."
Select "Nursing Topics" in the top box on the next screen.
Choose a specific area you need to focus on, or click "Select all" in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Click "Next" at the top right of the screen.
Good luck!

Clinical dread

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:55:28 GMT

I dread going to clinicals. Every night before clinicals I have trouble sleeping because I have this awful fear that I am going to do something that will harm one of my patients. On the way to clinicals there is a knot in my stomach that seems to grow tighter the closer I get to the hospital. Am I going to make a complete fool of myself today? Am I going to get stuck working with a nurse who hates me the second she hears she has a student nurse? Am I even going to see the RN assigned to my patient, or is she going to assume I can actually handle everything? Will something make me throw up or pass out? Will something make me cry? All of these thoughts cycle through my mind before I even unlock the car door. Some days do end up being as bad as I feared. Others end up being even worse. Fortunately, the majority of the days end up being amazing. I have seen the faces of people as they meet their child for the very first time. I have been there when test results come back showing that everything is going to be ok. I have been the comic relief in tense situations (and I am usually not trying to be funny- I just happen to do a lot of stupid things when I am nervous), and I have been the needed friend when someone thought they were all alone. Although life during clinical rotations is stressful and hectic, I miss it during periods that we don't have clinicals (such as now through July 10th). I'm sure you guys miss it too, because I don't really have much to write about when I'm not making a fool of myself in front of doctors, patients, and my instructors. Don't worry, in a few weeks that awful knot and my embarrassing stories will be back!

Instructors

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 07:04:31 GMT

We have a few instructors who are truly wonderful people. Unfortunately, they should not be nursing instructors. We have had these two instructors for the last few weeks who are both community nurses. Talking to either of them one-on-one, you can tell how friendly and caring they really are. But when they get up in front of the class, they have no idea how to teach a group of accelerated nursing students. Instead of having lecture these last two weeks, they have tried to have lots of group discussions. When I say "group discussions" I really mean that we all sit there and listen to two of our classmates as they share their stories. We were supposed to have a lecture on handling a disaster. To be honest, it is incredibly hard to listen to anyone hired by our school as they talk about disaster management because obviously our school cannot handle their own disaster- their faculty, administration, and curriculum. So already having one strike against her, the instructor started class by asking, "Who here has been in a natural disaster?" Now, if this were just a show of hands type question, I wouldn't be upset. But she actually had students spend ten or fifteen minutes of class talking about the natural disasters they have witnessed. Is knowing that Vicki was in a tornado going to help me triage my patients if I am ever in this situation!? Every one of our lectures over the past two weeks has been run this way. Our lecture on being a nurse manager basically consisted of questions such as, "What qualities make someone a good leader?" Every response given by the students was "correct." How is this educational? Maybe it's just my personality, but I need facts and answers to learn things, not just group discussions where nothing gets accomplished. This left me with two options: lose what is left of my sanity, or skip class. I'm not going to incriminate myself by saying that I skipped class, but I will just say that these new jeans look much better on me than a straight jacket would.

Are you serious?

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 00:06:06 GMT

I find myself making the same promise after every single test that I take: I will never do the assigned reading again. And yet the weekend before each test, I end up reading every single assigned page. This leads to an extreme amount of frustration when the test questions are poorly worded or just plain ridiculous and there is no difference in scores between the students who did the reading and those who did not do the reading. So why do I keep doing the reading? I'm not sure, but it probably has something to do with the same insanity that led me to an accelerated nursing program. Anyway, after every test I leave angry that I wasted my entire weekend reading. This morning's test was no different, and it put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. A few hours after the test, we were given the details about a large community project that we have to complete by next Thursday. Everything seemed overwhelming but acceptable until the instructor got to the last page of the instructions, where it stated that we would evaluate our group members on their participation. At first this seemed like a great idea- I have worked with several people to whom I would gladly give a zero for their lack of participation. The catch, however, is that we had to actually RANK the people in our group. The top person would get 15 points (the project is worth 100 points total), the second best 14 points, etc. Our group has 11 people!! This means that whoever we put last would automatically have a B as the highest possible score for the project. Are you serious? What an idiotic idea!! Remember, one of our classmates was kicked out for being 0.01% too low, so every point really does matter! Being the calm and respectful class that we are, we all started arguing with the instructor. People were shouting their objections to this grading plan and it was a chaotic scene. While I was sitting there listening to everyone argue with the teacher, something suddenly clicked in my mind. I raised my hand and said, "According to the assigned reading for the class on successful managing practices, an evaluation system requiring people to be ranked against their peers can be detrimental to group cohesion." The smirk on the instructor's face was priceless. She slowly started nodding her head as my classmates started clapping and cheering. Well, we will no longer be using the ranking system, and for the first time I can actually say that doing the reading has paid off!

And the results are...

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:46:21 GMT

Click HERE to see my HESI exam results.
Although it says 99%, I didn't just miss one question. I actually missed 16 out of 110 questions. I am very happy with this score, but don't think that it has anything to do with how much I know. I am an excellent test taker. I don't know what it is, but when I read a question about something I don't know, I can somehow figure out what the right answer is just by looking at the choices. When browsing through Mike's architecture licensing exam study guide, I was able to get a lot of the questions right although I know nothing about construction documents. Unfortunately, if I ever have a patient having an allergic reaction to their medication, a little box will not pop up above their head that says, "Your patient is experiencing these five classic symptoms. Which of the following will you administer to this patient?" I won't have a one if four chance of guessing right- I'll just have to know it. And to be honest, I don't know much without seeing the answer choices. In three months I will graduate. Yes, my school has prepared me to pass the multiple-choice licensing exam. But have they prepared me to be a good nurse? I feel like I have four years of stuff to learn before then. I've been told by several nurses that one day it will all just click. I'm impatiently waiting for the clicking to begin...

Surviving the prereqs

Wed, 31 May 2006 02:08:08 GMT

All nursing programs have prerequisites. These are classes you have to take before starting the actual nursing program, and while some of them apply directly to nursing, many of them don't. Here are some tips on how to get through these courses:

Microbiology ~ Think of this class as a new diet. Trust me, after seeing the things that grow off of a swab from even fresh food, everything in your refrigerator will be disgusting.
Anatomy & Physiology ~ Use flashcards and websites such as howstuffworks.com to help you learn the material. Every once in awhile, allow yourself a few minutes to sit back and think about how fascinating our bodies really are. When you take on this attitude, the class can actually be enjoyable.
Chemistry ~ Watch CSI every week. Once in awhile, you will recognize something that they say or do in the lab, and it will make you feel like you actually learned something.
Religion ~ Pay attention in this class. You will be praying a lot in nursing school for God to help you hold on to your sanity!
Texas History ~ Texas is the only state I know of that requires students to take a state-specific history course. The solution? Don't go to school in Texas.
Nutrition ~ Just in case the Micro diet doesn't work, taking this course will help you realize how unhealthy you really are.
Pathophysiology ~ Try not to diagnose yourself with everything you learn about!
Psychology ~ You will finally understand what is wrong with all of your friends.

Hard to forget

Mon, 22 May 2006 20:17:51 GMT

One of the best (and sometimes worst) things about patients is that they each manage to touch our lives in some way. If they are pleasant to work with, you might find yourself in a better mood. This also works the opposite way- you could be having an amazing day and one patient can bring you down (thankfully, these patients are rare). Then there are those truly amazing patients who have more of an impact than just your mood for one day- you will remember them for the rest of your life. I had a patient like this last November. He was told that he only had six months to live, and November was six months ago. He has been on my mind and in my prayers a lot lately, and I hope he is proving the doctors wrong.

From November:

I went in to meet my new patient this morning, and he was a friendly older man. He asked for some coffee, and said that when I returned, he would have a surprise for me. I brought him his coffee and saw my present: a cute flower-shaped balloon. My patient was a clown, and he has been for thirty years. He has spent half his life making people smile. But today, he wasn't smiling. He was anxiously waiting for his liver biopsy results, worried that he would have to have some sort of surgery. A doctor finally came to talk to him, and when she left the room, I went back in to check on him. He was sitting next to his bed, shoulders slumped over, staring at the floor. I sat down next to him, put my hand on his hand, and said nothing. A few minutes later, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "I have six months to live." He put his other hand on top of my hand. "How am I going to tell my wife?" The tears started streaming down his face. I felt them doing the same on my face. "I don't know," I replied. Several minutes passed in silence. "I know we all have to go at some point, but my kids! How can I tell them that I will not be here in six months?" More silent tears from both of us. Why is it that this kind, loving man can spend thirty years making people laugh and smile, and yet at this exact moment, the scariest and most awful moment in his life, there is no one who can make him smile or laugh? No words or balloons could possibly take away some of the pain and grief he is experiencing. Somehow, this made me feel empty inside. The one time my patient actually NEEDED something, I came up with nothing. I know there is nothing I could possibly do, but my heart is stubborn, and it won't acknowledge this. So I'm sitting here now, picturing my favorite clown lying in a scary, lonely hospital room, balloons probably long forgotten, and I cry.

Great nurses

Sun, 21 May 2006 15:01:37 GMT

Although I have talked a lot about nurses who failed to impress me, there really are many wonderful nurses out there. This is from my friend John:

When I did my day of observation in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), I worked with a nurse named "Bobbi." We had two patients, a 1 1/2 lbs boy, and a 3 1/2 lbs, two month old (also born at 1 1/2 lbs and 25 weeks) girl. However, down the hall another nurse, "Suzy" had sole responsibility for a 13 oz. girl. This baby was so tiny. She was one of a set of twins born at 25 weeks. Her sister had already died, and she was in a very precarious condition.

About 11 am Bobbi's phone rings. She then says, "Suzy needs help, wait here until I return." So I am standing there when about 10 minutes later two EMT's come rushing by with this full size gurney and go into Suzy's pod. I thought, "Surely they aren't going to use that full size gurney to transport that tiny little baby." Well about 10 minutes later they come rushing out headed in the other direction. On the gurney is Suzy, her scrub top covered in blood, and holding a blood soaked towel to her face. She had popped a blood vessel inside a nasal cavity, and was bleeding profusely. She and Bobbi couldn't get it to stop bleeding, so she was being transported down to the ER for treatment.

The other nurses gathered and decided how they were going to re-shuffle the work for the rest of the shift, as it was obvious Suzy wasn't going to be back. She had lost quite a bit of blood.

About an hour later I am in the hall when the doors swing open, and here comes Suzy, literally rushing back to her pod. She had on a way too big jacket to cover her blood stained scrubs. You could see cotton sticking out of both of her nares, and there was a strip of tape across the bottom of her nose to hold the packing in. Bobbi and another nurse stopped her and asked, "What are you doing here? Go Home." "I need to finish my shift," says Suzy. "No," said Bobbi, "We've got it all worked out and me and the other nurses are going to cover for you. It will be fine. Go home." Suzy looked at her with these steel cold eyes and said, "No one knows her (the 13 oz preemie) like I do. I need to finish my shift." That stopped Bobbi cold. She thought for a second and said, "You're right. We don't." With that she got out of Suzy's way.

I didn't think much of this at the time it happened, but I have thought about it a lot since. When I grow up, I want to be just like Suzy, who is so dedicated, and Bobbi, who puts pride aside to do what is right for the patient.

We're in this together

Fri, 19 May 2006 00:52:56 GMT

Our school sends us to hospitals all over the Kansas City area for our clinicals. We spend two weeks at each hospital, then move on to a new hospital with a different instructor. While this does have some benefits, such as seeing which hospitals we want to work for in the future, it does make clinicals extremely stressful. Once you start figuring out one hospital's system and where everything is, you move on to the next one and feel lost all over again. At our last clinical rotation, there was a slight scheduling conflict on our first day. Another nursing school had a clinical group on the same floor as us, and there were only eight patients. This meant that there were sixteen nursing students sharing eight patients. The students from the other school were in their ninth week at this hospital, so they knew their way around. They were in their junior year, while my classmates and I have only three months left of school. You'd think that we would be the ones who knew what we were doing, but that was far from being the case. These students knew their stuff! At first it was intimidating sharing a patient with someone younger and smarter, but within minutes, we all realized that this could actually be a wonderful experience. These students were patient, friendly, and actually taught us things that we didn't know. They could have rubbed our ignorance in our faces or showed us up to make themselves look good, but they didn't. They reaffirmed the message that I have been getting from you guys since I started this site: we are all in this together, and we will somehow get through!

It's about time!

Wed, 17 May 2006 19:40:11 GMT

Something amazing happened at clinicals: I learned a skill! Before you get too excited and start thinking that my school finally got its act together, let me explain. My patient was a girl with spina bifida. Her mother has become an expert at her care, and catheterizes her every few hours. I've been in nursing school for nine months, but have never put in a catheter (or even seen one done on an actual person). I asked the mother if she was ok with me watching her cath her daughter, and she not only agreed, but actually took the time to explain to me exactly what she was doing. She then taught me all about her daughter's different health conditions and how to best take care of each one. I was in awe over how much this woman knew, and at how dedicated she was to taking care of her beautiful little girl.

Laughter, the best medicine

Fri, 12 May 2006 00:54:36 GMT

One of my favorite patients during my pediatrics rotation was a beautiful teenage girl. She had come to the hospital for an outpatient surgery but was admitted to the peds floor for uncontrolled pain after the surgery. She said she was having severe pain in her leg, but her doctors could not figure this out because the surgery had nothing to do with her leg. No pain medication would get rid of her pain, which she always rated as an eight out of ten. Her parents live several hours away, and were unable to stay with her. When I did my assessment on her, she told me that her leg was numb and that she could not move it. She needed to use the restroom, so I told her I would help her walk to it. To get out of bed, she had to lift her leg with her hands and throw it over the side of the bed. When she finally stood up I helped her make her way to the restroom, and I was supporting most of her weight. On her way back to bed, she said she wanted to brush her teeth. I had grabbed a small tube of toothpaste before, so with me standing there with her, she picked up the toothpaste and squeezed it on the toothbrush. "This toothpaste looks gross. It smells bad," she said. Once she started brushing her teeth, she said, "Ewww.. it tastes gross." She continued brushing while I picked up the toothpaste tube. I looked at it for a second, then looked over at her and said, "Oh, no! I'm so sorry! I accidentally grabbed diaper ointment." She froze in place, her eyes got big, and she said, "WHAT?!" I smiled and told her I was just kidding. We both laughed and she finished brushing her teeth, smiling the whole time. When we walked back to bed, I barely had to support her. She climbed into bed without any problem, her leg miraculously healed.

Stress

Fri, 05 May 2006 15:11:10 GMT

I know this is probably hard to believe, but when I was in grade school, I was a dork. I was a tomboy who would choose playing baseball with the boys over gossiping with the girls during recess. Because of this, when the girls would hang out, they would exclude me. Although I didn't like them, this still somehow hurt. Instead of staying at home and crying, I found my own escape from the world- a small hidden pond in the woods by our house. I would spend hours every day out there exploring, catching frogs and turtles, and coming up with crazy adventures with whoever I was with.
I'm older now and have outgrown the tomboy phase. I've been a hard-working student who has completed nine months of an intensive, unorganized, frustrating, one year accelerated nursing program. I've been pretty stressed out lately, having to deal with a new clinical instructor every other week. Each new instructor has completely different ways of doing everything than the instructor before her. We have an online course that I have been trying to complete, but things keep going wrong with the way the course is set up, preventing me from taking the quiz I just spent the last two hours studying for. Thinking about finding a real job is stressful because although we only have three months left in the program, I feel like all I have learned is how to clean poop, give medications, and change bed sheets (and nursing consists of much more than these three things). I haven't seen my boyfriend since the beginning of March, and when I do get to see him next weekend, I'll be spending my time studying for a huge test. The list of things stressing me out goes on....

Well, maybe I haven't exactly outgrown the tomboy phase. Meet Fred, the frog I caught in my attempt to get away from the world. He peed on me a few seconds after this picture was taken, but don't worry, I know how to clean that up. Maybe these nine months haven't been a complete waste?

A little awkward?

Thu, 04 May 2006 04:04:39 GMT

Danielle and I were given the chance to work with the same patient on the mother/baby unit today. The woman we were assigned to was an adorable mother of three who had just given birth to a baby girl. Neither Danielle nor I have any children. We were told to go do patient teaching with the mother, which included instructions on breast feeding, bathing her infant, self-care, etc. As I mentioned before, this was the woman's third child. Danielle and I watched a quick video two months ago on giving a baby a bath, and read in our book about all of the self care stuff a month and a half ago. Let's think about this one- she's been through it twice, we both read about it awhile ago- she could have taught us! I understand the importance of teaching our patients how to take care of themselves, but when we really have no idea what we are talking about, it is slightly uncomfortable. Thankfully, the woman was wonderful with a good sense of humor, and she let us stumble our way through our teaching. When Mike has our babies in the future, I hope he is just as nice to any student nurses he may come across.

Why nursing?

Mon, 01 May 2006 04:27:19 GMT

This story is from my classmate Misty:

With butterflies in my stomach, but an excitement I couldn’t explain, I arrived at the hospital for my first clinical experience. "Ann," the patient I was assigned to, was diagnosed with a subdural hematoma related to a fall, and although she had been healthy before the accident, her condition was rapidly declining. I went in and sat with Ann's daughter, who was praying for a miracle. I listened, comforted and listened some more. I assured her that I would do whatever I could to assist her mother with her recovery. Unknown to anyone at the time, a miracle was just what was in store.

You see, Ann was unable to verbally communicate and her nonverbal communication was very limited. She was unable to swallow and frequently her breathing became labored. She was practically comatose, but internally something kept telling me to talk to her as if she could hear me, could communicate and was able to respond. I accompanied her to procedures, talking to her, holding her hand, gently touching her forehead, assuring her I was with her and would not leave her side the entire time. Ann responded by squeezing my hand and was that a smile, however small? I just knew she felt my presence and I was glad I was there with her. For the remainder of the day following the procedure, she was very sleepy. I only disturbed her rest to take vitals and provide medications.

On my last day with Ann, the doctor was in with her when I arrived. He was holding her hand and Ann was responding. Verbally responding. He asked her if she believed in Jesus and she said yes. He said there was no medical explanation for her recovery and that she was what they referred to as a miracle. I was tearing up in the back of the room. WOW, I was able to witness a miracle! What an honor, privilege, unforgettable, indescribable and humbling experience. What a reaffirmation of the decision to go into nursing, making the sacrifices and leaps of faith more than worth it.

(fill name in blank) was a great student!

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:26:09 GMT

At the end of each week of clinicals, we have to fill out a self evaluation. I spent about forty-five minutes working on mine last night, and then posted it for my teacher to read and comment on. Between classes today I checked my email and saw that my instructor had replied. I have heard from my classmates that this instructor likes leaving negative comments, so I nervously read through her response. This is what she wrote:

Katie came to clinical prepared with teaching plan and medication module completed and demonstrated knowledge of meds to be administered. Great start this week to identifying patient problems and formulating prioritized nursing diagnoses accordingly. Katie was professional in all her interactions with patients, staff, and peers. Documentation was thorough and accurate. Demonstrated competency in performing a newborn and postpartum assessment. I appreciate your enthusiasm and eagerness to learn. Your patients appreciate you taking the time to teach them and explain self care as well as newborn care to them. Katie was satisfactory in her clinical performance this week. Keep up the good work.

After reading this, I was shocked. Not only did she not say anything negative, she actually said positive things! I was competent in my newborn assessment? Great! I was competent in my postpartum (after giving birth) assessment? Well, that would be great, except for the fact that I never had the opportunity to do a postpartum assessment... Hmm... Danielle sat down at the computer next to me, so I told her to read her evaluation. She opened hers up and surprisingly, she had the exact same evaluation. Word for word (except hers said "Danielle" where mine said "Katie"). What?! We saw our classmate Janet and had her read hers too. They were all identical! I was getting a little frustrated. She at least read what I wrote in my self evaluation, right? Most teachers comment specifically on what I write, but it's ok if she didn't as long as she read the stupid thing. We compared the times our evaluations were sent, and they were a minute apart. The woman didn't even read them! I'm sure she never expected to get caught, but it's too late, we know her little secret. I think we can use this to our advantage. Next week for our self evaluations, one of us will write the evaluation and the rest of us will copy and paste it as our own. I doubt that she will even notice. And if she does notice and mentions it, we'll just say we got the idea from her. My instructors have taught me a lot!

Check this out...

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 03:01:48 GMT

If a constipated patient comes into the hospital to have his impaction removed and he has been in the bathroom for a long time, politely smile and walk away quickly when he comes out of the bathroom (without flushing) and says, "Wow, you have to come check this out!"

Forced volunteering

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 22:34:04 GMT

To graduate from my school, we have to "volunteer." I think that forced volunteering is appropriate for high school students and possibly even college students in some majors, but for a group of college graduates going back for a second degree? Give me a break! I've been in this program for awhile now, and have had time to accept that I have to volunteer, and have actually completed most of my hours. But what I am having a hard time getting over now is this ridiculous journal that they are making us complete. I can only BS so much! Here are some examples and what I want to put as my answers:

1. Describe what you learned from your service.
I learned how to paint a house. I also learned how to put up siding. Most importantly though, I learned the importance of wearing old clothes and shoes when painting a house.
2. Take a concept from one of your courses and describe how it relates to your volunteering.
During one of my clinical rotations, I had a patient who was severely constipated. My classmate Danielle and I had to digitally remove his impaction. This experience reminds me of our service learning because both examples involve people having things pulled out of their #@!. In the clinical case, it is poop being removed. When it comes to service learning, it is this flowery BS about how much we have grown as people by being forced to volunteer.
3. In what ways does engaging civically have anything to do with the reason you want to be a nurse?
Engaging civically? Is that the politically correct way of saying, "being forced to volunteer?" Hmm… I know from the wording of this question that I have to say “yes” somehow… Engaging civically is similar to me wanting to be a nurse because as a nurse there will be things that I do not want to do but that I will have to do anyway.
4. How was your service this semester different than your service last semester?
Ok, now I have no idea how I am even supposed to BS on this one! What do they want from me here? Oh, I know! It was warmer this semester than it was last semester.
5. What about your experience this semester impacted you the most?
Were you not reading carefully? I wasn't the one impacted, the patient was!

Wow, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside after completing this journal! Don't you guys?!

Ungrateful and difficult? Me?!

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 15:52:13 GMT

As many of you who read my blog know, I am not very impressed by my school. We have a high pass rate on the NCLEX, but we also probably have a high admittance rate at the local psych hospitals for students who have been driven to insanity. I actually think that my new clinical instructor is paid by the local psychiatric hospitals to bring in more patients. She must be rich by now. Last week she pushed us almost to our breaking point. While we were teetering on the edge of sanity, she brought up our plans for this week. She mentioned how we needed to drive out to a low-income school located forty minutes from where we all live. We would show up on Tuesday and teach them about "personal safety." On Wednesday, we would drive all the way back out there and meet for lunch for our post conference. Instantly, in all of our poor college student minds, we realized that it is ridiculous to drive all the way back out to the area just to meet for lunch. Couldn't we meet for lunch after teaching on Tuesday? Or even meet for lunch closer to where we live on Wednesday? We suggested this to her, and she responded with, "Well, then, when would you do the surveys?" What surveys? She had never mentioned surveys before. She went into detail about these surveys we were supposed to do (this is how she told us about everything- randomly whenever she thought about it). We realized that we could do those surveys on Tuesday after teaching at the school. This would save us from driving out there twice, and we all prefer getting everything done all at once anyway. Her response to this? "Well, if you do it Tuesday, how are you going to get the banner?" What banner?! Oh, our school banner we are supposed to get from a woman who just happens to be out of the office until Wednesday. Hmm... could you have brought this stupid banner thing up before?! This type of randomly throwing out additional requirements went on for a few more minutes. Us brilliant students kept coming up with ways to work out every problem she threw at us, until she finally said, "You students are so ungrateful and are treating this class like it's a joke!! I forgot how much I hate working with you difficult Accelerated students!" Us? Difficult? Yes. I agree. But treating her class like a joke because we aren't willing to spend $2.70 a gallon to drive to the middle of nowhere just for lunch? Hand me those admission papers, I think my instructor just made some more commission at the psych hospital.....

Fun with documenting

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 04:29:43 GMT

The hospitals we have our clinicals at use electronic documentation. While there are many advantages to this type of documenting, there are also some problems, especially for student nurses who tend to make a lot of mistakes. One section of the patient assessment has you enter information about the patient's level of consciousness. This section uses the Glasgow Coma Scale, where a higher number indicates the patient is more alert. After answering all of the questions, the computer brings up a box that says, "Total score <5?" One of my classmates must have been confused by the "<" symbol, because he hit "Yes" even though his patient scored a fifteen. I can't even imagine the panic he felt when another box popped up that said, "Begin procedures to contact Organ Transplant Team." Oops! He started having a panic attack because he thought that the Organ Transplant team was going to show up in his patient's room with their coolers ready to go, only to find his patient sitting in bed with a startled look on her face. It ends up that the computer does not automatically contact anybody, and that they were able to fix his little mistake. Maybe I'm evil for even thinking this, but if I were on his floor when this was going on, I would have considered asking one of the techs to walk down the hallway carrying my lunch cooler just to see the look on his face.

Application IQ test

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:20:25 GMT

While filling out my application to take the Texas NCLEX (nursing licensing exam), I realized something interesting: the application itself is similar to a grade-school IQ test. Here are some examples: "Affix the check to the top left corner of the application with a paperclip." "Staple photo to the back of the upper right corner of the first page of the application." What happens if I accidentally use a paperclip instead of a staple to affix my photo to the application? Or what if the paperclip and check are on the right corner? I bet I would fail their test and they would not allow me to take the licensing exam in Texas. Now, I know that I can handle these simple tests. However, my school is requiring that we fill out all of our paperwork and then turn everything in to them so they can mail it. Hmm... the faculty at my school taking a grade-school IQ test? I do not have confidence that they will pass. Leaving this responsibility with the people who halfway through the year sent me a letter stating I was missing an important prerequisite (they just misplaced my transcripts- no big deal, right?) is going to keep me up at night.

Miss know-it-all

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 18:55:10 GMT

One of my classmates happens to know more than every single teacher we have. She sits in the back and is constantly correcting or challenging what the teacher has said. She rarely says these corrections loud enough for the teacher to hear, so only her lucky classmates get to experience her vast knowledge. Last week in class we were discussing why doctors put antibiotic ointment in a newborn's eyes. The teacher said that it is done because the mother might have a sexually transmitted disease. From the back of the room I heard Miss know-it-all say in her holier-than-thou voice, "Well, what it the woman has never had sex? She couldn't have an STD then." Yeah, thanks for clearing that one up for us....

The classmate orchestra

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 17:13:54 GMT

As I'm sure you all know by now, I absolutely hate it when my classmates tell stories during class. I really don't care that your third cousin's neighbor has ADD, I don't need to hear about it!! And once one person tells their story, that opens the door for three more people to tell a story. I'm also sure by now that you know that I love all of my classmates, they just really get on my nerves after I spend too much time with them and their stories in class.
A few of my classmates have little habits that make me want to scream. A few students raise their hand to tell a story and say, "I was just going to say..." Or if they are asking a question, they say, "I was just going to ask..." I don't know why this drives me crazy, but I want to yell, "Say it! You don't need to introduce your question or story- just get it out and let us get on with class so I can go home and read all 500 pages tonight!" Then there is the "I mean" girl. I mean, she is a wonderful person, but I mean, she too is guilty of telling way too many, I mean, way too many stories. If you were already frustrated, wouldn't that drive you crazy too? Next we have the snorters. There are two girls who sit together in the front row who randomly snort. They don't have anything in their nose at the time, so it's not a "trying to clear the mucous and breathe" snort- it's just a dry, loud, snort. Sometimes it really startles me when they do it.
Yesterday in class, we were getting nowhere with lecture. We were discussing psychological disorders, and each time the instructor would even mention the name of a disorder, several hands would go up and mouths would start moving. I was trying to keep myself calm when "I mean" girl started talking. I looked over at Danielle and we gave each other that, "I'm going to go crazy" look. As soon as "I mean" girl was done talking, one of the "I was just going to say" girls raised her hand, and as soon as she finished her intro, one of the snorters snorted really loud. I looked over at Danielle again and we both just started laughing. I felt really bad, but we could not control ourselves anymore. We were both holding our breath and turning purple trying to hold it in, but you reach that snapping point where you can no longer keep it to yourself. Our classmates had turned themselves into an orchestra. "I mean I mean I mean..." "I was just going to say, just going to say, just going to say..." Snort! Time to leave and go to the penny slots.

Reasons to have a student nurse

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 20:11:26 GMT

We might manage to get ourselves stuck in the shower, and we probably will be shaking while trying to poke you with a needle, but there actually are good reasons to want a student nurse to take care of you:

1. You will get more attention than you ever thought possible while at a hospital.
2. Everything about you will be fascinating. A nurse who has been on the job for twenty years has seen it all. That five inch gash on your leg? That's nothing. But to a student, that paper cut on your pinkie looks pretty bad, and will get the attention it deserves.
3. Now that they have so many laparoscopic surgeries, you won't have many wounds to show off to your friends to get sympathy once you are out of the hospital. Let a student nurse start an IV on you and you will have a huge battle-wound bruise for two full weeks.
4. You will get to laugh. A lot.
5. Everything will be quadruple checked. The paranoid and nervous student will check each medication three times, and her instructor will check it at least once more.
6. Student nurses are more fun. When an experienced nurse is about to give you an injection and you scream "Ouch," she will give you a funny look or call psych for an evaluation. The nervous student nurse will jump and probably scream too. Which one would be more entertaining for you?

Things my psych patients have taught me

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:11:55 GMT

~ Eating a jar of VapoRub followed by a tube of Bengay will not cleanse your system of cocaine.
~ It is not funny to tell your psychologist that you want to kill your boss.
~ Psych nurses do not have a good sense of humor when it comes to April Fool's Day jokes. Putting a glass of water on top of the door and having it fall on your nurse will get you a day of lockup (but you will be the coolest kid on the unit).
~ You should not attempt to breastfeed with a straw.

Nursing pharmacology help

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 03:28:40 GMT

I set up a site with my old pharmacology tables to help any of you nursing students taking pharm right now.

http://spaces.msn.com/pharmhelp

Good luck!