kismette

I went to my second clinical yesterday. I had a rough time. I lowkey don't really want to write about it, but I will because it'll be good to look at later. Okay. So first, I did not sleep until 1am the night before hehe. I was nervous about clinical and I was chatting with my friends to just distract myself and I thought that just chatting would make me sleepy, but I was very engaged in our conversation. oops! I had a fun time tho, but yea I should've been more responsible and controlled myself. I got 4 hours of sleep bc I had to wake up at 5am.

I woke up and got ready, I got to the hospital a little later than I wanted, but it was okay because almost everyone was like 5 min late. I got there like 5 minutes before time. We immediately went to our assigned floors, so I didn't really have time to get nervous and I was also too tired to get nervous. Me and my partner got there, I put my stuff down in the break room, then we went to huddle. I got assigned the nurse one of my other groupmates had last week. She was nice, but she was getting over a bad cold and she seemed really tired. She got report from the night shift nurse. They were mostly talking in their shared language, so I was just zoning out. We had 5 patients. The first patient was a really nice lady. The second was an older man. He was asking us to "switch his legs" and my preceptor asked me to do it, but I didn't know where to start. I put my gloves on and was just standing there while her and the night shift nurse were talking. I was waiting to ask them to guide me and I tried to get their attention, but they ignored me. I asked the patient how he wanted to be moved and he just kept saying that he wanted his legs switched. I didn't want to hurt him or anything so I didn't touch him. He told me it was okay and he'd wait for my preceptor to do it. She didn't ask him what he wanted and just put pillows between his legs, which is something I probably wouldn't have thought of, so I would've messed that up. She told me not to worry about it tho.

Ok this is the triggering part. We got to the third patients room. When I walked in she looked extremely sick. She was sleeping and my preceptor was trying to wake her up, but I honestly thought she wasn't going to. She couldn't talk because she lost her voice. She was very lethargic, but the night shift nurse told us that she was talking fine last night. They needed to draw some blood because her last hemoglobin value was low. She had a port, but my preceptor was having trouble getting an adequate amount of blood. Since she was having trouble, she decided to try to stick her and she couldn't so she had to ask the night shift nurse for help. The night shift nurse asked me to get her gauze and when I gave it to her she snatched it out of my hand and gave me a look. I'm not gonna let it get to me, but it was probably because I was a student so whatever. My preceptor asked me to get her a syringe, but I dropped the whole container and its contents on the floor so that was really embarrassing and that felt terrible, but no one said anything, so I was okay. I picked up everything. THEN!! this actually traumatized me!! trigger warning!! The night shift nurse told me to hold the patient's wrist to act like a tourniquet. The patient was cold to the touch. It was hard to find a vein bc she was extremely swollen, so the night shift nurse repositioned the needle at least 10 times. It looked like she was sweeping the inside her wrist with the needle. She couldn't get blood so she told me to let go. I let go and my hand print was left on her wrist because she had pititng edema. I tried rub it to see if that would make it better, but it didn't. While that was happening, the patient couldn't speak, but I could tell she was in a lot of pain. After that, my preceptor decided to call a rapid response because the patient's blood pressure dropped. I stepped away and the only thing I could do was watch as the rapid response nurses and doctors came in. I felt bad because I could only stand there and watch. I almost cried a couple times because of the alarms going off and the overall chaos going on. That lasted for awhile and my preceptor had to make a lot of calls, but we eventually got out of there and everyone else took over.

The rest of the day was calmer, but I was still shaken up. I don't know how I'm supposed to get used to seeing that. I got to take a blood pressure on a sweet and funny patient. I got to feed two patients. We also got to discharge the first patient. We had a sweet older patient who got admitted because she had a stroke and has right sided weakness. She couldn't talk well because of the right sided paralysis on her face. The only thing that really irked me that my preceptor did was that she was not really trying to understand what she was saying. I could tell the patient was getting frustrated because my preceptor was either repeating the same questions about her paralysis, on the computer, or updating the whiteboard. I was trying to understand her and I felt really bad because she was trying so hard to talk clearly. She was looking at me and I was just nodding my head, trying to repeat what she said, just trying to make her feel validated. She was the sweetest, but her son was sooo rude.

It was lunch time and I got to eat with my unit partner and my partner from last week which was good. I got a wrap and a sparkling water. We were preparing what to say for post conference. After lunch, I only had to go back for 30 minutes. When I got back, I got lucky and my preceptor was getting ready to take her lunch break. I left and I thanked her. She told me sorry for the traumatizing experience. I told her no worries and laughed it off. My professor moved our meeting time an hour earlier which was awesome. I really needed that after what happened. We met at the atrium of the hospital and it was really beautiful. Me and my partner got there first so we got to say our report one-on-one to our professor. Everyone got there and said their reports, but my preceptor referenced my "busy day" so everyone wanted to hear about my patient. I repeated my report and everyone felt bad for me, which was pretty nice because I felt validated. I honestly thought I was just being a pussy about it. We finished and everyone went on their way. A good thing that happened was I got to see the cute med student again so everything was worth! (jk)

My mom picked me up and we went home. I told her about my day and she comforted me which was nice. I was exhausted so I took a nap. Then I woke up and my friend called me. She was going to pick up her sisters from somewhere and I asked if I could come with. I wanted to get out of the house because my family was somewhere and I didn't want to be alone. So I tagged along and we picked them up, then we got canes and played a board game there that they got from the thrift store. It was fun and it made me feel better.

I went to my very first clinical yesterday. I was really nervous at first, but I had fun. I got assigned the a unit with another one of my groupmates. I didn't know what to expect, but it was one of the chiller units. When me and my groupmate got there everyone was soooo welcoming. Most of nurses were really young so I immediately felt accepted. I had an amazing preceptor. He was really nice and funny. We had six patients. First, I listened to him get report from the night shift nurses, then we visited all the patients. We had six patients total. My preceptor really made me feel like I fit right in. I was especially touched when he introduced me to the patients and wrote my name with his on the whiteboard :'). After we said good morning to all the patients, we got all their morning meds. SOOOO MANY MEDS. I saw how the pyxis machine (drug machine) worked and while each drug was popping up on the screen, my preceptor was quizzing me on what those drugs did. I ofc didn't know a lot of the answers, but he was kind enough to tell me after I said I wasn't sure. I got to see and touch pitting edema and ofc fetch some stuff like gauze or the vital machine. We got to sit down after medpass and I watched him chart. He logged in to his epic for me on the other computer and I got to click around for awhile. I got mistaken as a real nurse a couple times by other staff and even some doctors which was cool because I felt like a real nurse lol. I mean I was in the whole get-up, but it was still nice to be mistaken for one. It was an eight hour shift, but it honestly went by pretty fast. We had a 30min lunch break. I only got to eat for a little bit (like 10min) bc I was running everywhere like to the cafeteria and to the Mcdonalds that was downstairs. I saw my other groupmates and socialized, but I had to go upstairs to eat with my mom (I got lucky and got the hospital she works at for my placement and she had my lunch bag). After going back up, I just followed my preceptor around some more to get more meds. I saw him use the pill crusher and watched him give those meds through a patient's PEG tube which was interesting to see. I saw him draw blood and give a lot of IV push meds.Then it was time for me to leave and he told me that if he gets me again we'll do a lot more stuff. I also hope that means he liked me and wants to teach me again. I'm kinda sad that I prob won't have him again, but fingers-crossed I will. My groupmates and our clinical instructor met in the lobby after we were all done, then they all went home and I went back up to my mom's floor. In the elevator I saw the cutest med student omg. He was really tall and looked really good in his scrubs. Then I got to my mom's floor and I saw her and her work bestie and we all talked for a bit before heading home. Overall, I think I had an ideal first clinical experience that was really fun. I'm very appreacitive of my preceptor and all the nice people there.