Weeks 7 & 8

Hi everyone,

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. It has been a crazy 2 weeks, both in school and in the graduate admissions office. We have spent most of the time preparing for upcoming tests and quizzes. Last Tuesday was our second professional nursing lab quiz. I did not do as well as I thought I did on this quiz and I don't really know why. We will be going over the lab quiz on Monday in class. After the quiz in lab, we got to spend our first time slot practicing oral medications. This was probably one of my favorite times in lab. I am excited to begin administering oral medications in the clinical setting on a regular basis after being tested. We got to practice reading an individual patient's MAR and checking which meds to administer and which ones to discontinue. It was helpful to look up the meds and their most common doses, routes, etc.

In Health Assessment, we began to study sections of the body that I am most familiar with. We began the nervous system, which I was able to study mainly in undergrad. It was nice to feel comfortable with a full section of a full health assessment. After practicing cranial nerves for almost 2 years, I feel like I can do them in my sleep!

Last Friday in clinical, I was assigned to a patient who had broken the neck of his femur. He was especially interesting because he did not understand that he was injured. Whenever I asked him if he was using his inspective spirometer, he replied that he did not understand why he needed it. I explained that after being on bed rest for even a few days, his lungs could start to lose their respiration strength. He replied with “I’m not on bed rest”. Although it was completely evident that he was injured, he could not understand this. He slept through most of the day and it was difficult talking with him due to his confusion.

Today in clinical, I was happy to be assigned to a very pleasant woman. She had a past medical history of a bilateral mastectomy and was admitted with a chief complaint of abdominal distention and pain. It turned out that she had cancer of the appendix and had a hemicolectomy, in which they also removed a part of her ascending colon. This was interesting because I had never heard of a patient having cancer of the appendix. She was a very easy woman to work with and very willing to do what it takes to be discharged. This included participating in physical therapy, despite the pain that she was in.

Finally, in professional nursing this week, we had our 2^nd professional nursing exam. This exam was on an excessive amount of information. Since we were behind in class throughout the past few weeks, there was a lot of information provided very quickly. This information included fluid and electrolyte balance, acid-base balance, pain management, medications, diagnostic testing, urinary/bowel systems, etc. Although this was a lot of information, I did feel prepared for the exam. I studied a lot for this exam and concentrated most heavily on lab values of electrolytes and on the larger chapters.

We will be receiving the test and quiz on Monday in class. Hopefully we will see a positive outcome from this!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! (Oh by the way, at clinical today, most of the nurses were dressed in costume… including an x-ray technician who was dressed as a giraffe!!!)

Thanks for reading!

- Katie : )