Clinical Supplemental

So this summer I decided I wanted to keep my skills up and hopefully learn new ones. I signed up for a clinical class at the county hospital under the direction of Prof Trauma. I was excited...still am. We will be doing two 12 hour shifts a week in the advanced med/surg unit (people coming out of the ICU and whatnot). Our first day, was a get to know the hospital and their orientation lecture. I had a hard time staying awake for the orientation. They gave us a bunch of information that I spent two years getting a degree in and then a bunch of numbers I hope I will never have to use. I also realized how incrediby inefficient the education office of the county hospital is. I realized within the first half hour, I could do the Nurse Education Coordinator's job better than she could. Plus there was something about her I didn't like, it didn't help that she told us that nursing students are not allowed to administer IV push medication. I thought that was a little ridiculous. Anyway, the first day was rather boring, but at least I had an idea of what to expect...a little bit of chaos and disorganization and paper charting. At lunch time, we get a fake set of labs and we are told to figure out what is wrong with our patient and what we are going to do about it. Its like 20 questions except REALLY HARD. I took the notes for the group and will post them. Please remember THIS IS NOT A REAL PATIENT THE PROF MADE THE LAB VALUES UP SO NO LAWS ARE VIOLATED!!! I can't believe how much I learned in a two hour period. I started a list of all the things I should start looking up.

The second day, half of our group was not even there and some of the people that were left early. So we got to spend the whole day in Trauma ICU!!!!!! It was the best day EVER. I was following a nurse who was constantly teaching me things (my list was pretty long by the end of the day), I followed rounds with med students, I watch the admittance of a new patient to the ICU, I did a ton of patient care! I had a patient with a broken neck. The Dr showed us the CT scan, this guy was LUCKY he could move and feel anything. Had a homeless guy that was severly beaten...he didn't like me much because I brushed his teeth, for some reason he didn't like that. And the new admit was a woman who was hit by a car, bilateral collapsed lungs, and a massive head injury that just kept bleeding. They had to hand drill a whole in her head so they could insert a pressure monitor into the ventricles of the brain. It was nuts!!! I was insane how the TICU nurses and staff worked as one unit it. Everyone knew what to do, everyone was calm and found something to be useful. They were a well oiled machine. I was impressed. I am really hoping I get to go down there again. We will see tomorrow.