I have been pretty absent from this blog for the past month, so apologies if you have been checking it for updates . . . but this week I started my clinical placement! so now I have things to write about. I am at the same hospital as last semester but this time I'm on a different ward and as far as I know I'll be on the same ward for the whole two weeks. It's the renal, neurology and stroke ward so very different patients from my last placement.
Yesterday we just had orientation and because I've been at this hospital before I knew most of the stuff already. Luckily in my group there are two other girls that I'm already friends with and our clinical educator is really really nice.
Today with my buddy nurse (who was also really really nice, so hopefully I will get to work with her again) I looked after 3 patients who have had strokes and one who has just had a kidney transplant after being on dialysis for three years. I think stroke patients are quite interesting because the stroke can affect people in different parts of their brain or body. For example, for some it is more their psychomotor skills that are reduced, while others could be affected in the language part of their brain which makes having a conversation with them confusing, for both parties.
Within the first hour, I gave one patient a shower and did an injection, as well as doing the standard morning vital signs obs, medications, blood sugar level testing and so on. Most of the patients have an indwelling urinary catheter and their fluid intake and output needs to be measured. For the kidney transplantee that needs to be done hourly. Also, looked up lots of medications that I didn't know (that the patients are on)
In the afternoon, there was an education session for graduate (first year) nurses about tracheostomy care and I went along to that which was very interesting. We haven't studied that at uni yet but it's a good opportunity to learn because the teaching is a lot better and easier to absorb in the clinical setting than at uni.
My big blunder today (well, not that big but stressful at the time) was that I failed to get up early. I was so organised, went to bed at 9:30 (after taking a sleeping tablet at 8:30), set two alarms for 5am with the plan of having a full shower (ie, including hair wash), making my lunch and being at the hospital by 6:45am for 7:00am start. But no, I completely slept through the alarm and woke up at 6:30!!! I literally put on my uniform, quickly fed manny, ran out the door and to the train station. I arrived 7:10 which is pretty fast but I didn't feel very 'fresh' when I arrived. Ended up spending $20 throughout the day on expensive coffee and food. Oh well. Hopefully will do better tomorrow.
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