Week 16 as a level 3 nursing student

This week was one of many learning experiences! I was able to practice so many skills but also work on teamwork and things really started to 'fall together'. I also had my first incident report filed! Tough day, but the show must go on More details to follow!

My patient this week had surgery a few days before but had to stay in the hospital for a post-op infection and it had been 5 days or so since her surgery. It's a pretty long time to stay for a pretty minor surgery, but because of the infection, they wanted to keep her in for longer. She was getting IV antibiotics and here comes the mistake, folks! I had given the med on time and flushed the line with fluid but I forgot to unclamp the line after I had hooked up the medication to the secondary line. I don't know if everyone will understand, but basically, instead of getting the medication, she got the regular fluid ordered instead of the med. When I found out, I was so scared, I went in, fixed the line, my patient was ok, so next came the daunting part of telling my instructor. I went up to her and said, "Can I talk to you about something?" and explained the story to her and she was so great about it. Because I corrected the mistake within an acceptable window of time, there was no damage done to the patient, my instructor says. She was even deciding whether or not I needed to fill out an incident report because there was no harm done to the patient and the hospital didn't consider it a medication error because it was within the 1 hour window. I ended up filling one out, though. The thing that bothered me was not the fact that I had to fill out an incident report, because it doesn't really make a difference to me, but it was more the fact that I was so careless. It was essentially, literally, a rookie mistake. I can laugh about it now, but that day was bruuuuuuuuuutal! First incident report! After I made and dealt with the mistake, I had such a heavy heart. I kind of thought, 'oh god, if I could've made that mistake, I can easily make any other mistake!!' so this was definitely a humbling experience for me.

On the plus side, I got to hang out with and feed the baby I fed in week 15! She had grown SOOOO much in one week! I was also able to do so many other tasks this week like a dressing change, multiple IV medications, syringe pump meds, and basically got to do a lot of care for patients because I had the time to. I was a bit sad to leave because I am only starting to get the hang of things now. Oh well, change is in the nature of nursing, right?

I've made it through another semester, folks! Bangladesh is a comin!

Week 15 as a level 3 Nursing Student

This week was exciting for me because I was able to hang out with a super cute baby. This was the first newborn baby I was able to feed - she wasn't my patient assignment but I had some free time, so I wanted to get as much exposure as possible. This patient was born into addiction but contrary to the assumptions we may each carry, this patient's parents were quite involved. The interesting thing to me is the notion of drug use and our own beliefs about drug use, misuse, and abuse. Which word would you choose to use and why?

The semester is slowly winding down and funnily enough, the last paper to do is the final family theory paper. My assigned patient this week was a 10 year old boy who had been diagnosed with diabetes a year ago. He had had multiple hospitalizations these past 4 months due to poorly controlled blood sugars. I was able to watch patient teaching regarding nutrition and blood glucose monitoring. I think one thing I struggle with is being firm with patients. I have an inherent need to be 'friends' with people, to be 'nice' to others, and to be liked, essentially. While this may be acceptable in my personal life, it can be a barrier to the therapeutic relationship I develop with patients. This experience exemplified this weakness to myself. When the nurse was discussing nutrition with the patient, she was firm, not mean, but firm. It's definitely more firm than myself and what I'm used to, and I could see that the patient was a bit uneasy with the talk, but I also realize that it needed to be done. This little boy needed to learn the importance of diabetes management for his own health and well-being. Another interesting point is for me is the flexibility of being a nursing student. I was able to stay with the patient during the nutritional consultation, but also able to play video games with him! It was actually a very meaningful experience for me, believe it or not.

The joys of being a nurse!