Hit the ground running

    Whelp, I've worked on my floor for 4 days now. Thanks to my experiences at Mayo and Northwestern, I was able to take on a lot in a short amount of time. The last two days I had the full load of patients and did nearly all the work. My preceptor was there to support me, and when there was something new, she would help guide me through it. My preceptor is very knowledgeable and is great at remaining calm in stressful situations. I'm thankful to be with her cause I feel like I can learn a lot, but I can also learn how to do it without stressing out too much. I'll be on orientation for about 10 more weeks. During that time, I'll mostly be getting comfortable with the way things go on the floor and trying to get experience with things I wasn't able to do during nursing school (patients with traches, inserting IVs, different medications, etc.)

     My floor is a telemetry (cardiac) floor, but the patients I'm working with are very sick people. Compared to Mayo, it isn't as specialized, so I get a wider variety of patients.  I think that this is a great learning environment cause I get to see a lot. However, the patients often have a lot of complications and frequently have a poorer prognosis.

    Here's the thing: confidentiality is a huge issue which makes blogging a little difficult. However, I find the biggest problem to be that although I have so many experiences and so many stories, it's hard to share them in a way that is as meaningful in writing as it is in real life. Each day I learn something different and I am changed a little bit. You'd think that I'd have all kinds of stories about funny or difficult patients, but everything that is changing me is in the little moments. I'll try to give some examples
-I explain something to a patient and they say, "Why didn't anyone tell me this before?"
-I read a note in the chart that says my patient's wife died earlier this year. This makes me understand his attitude a little more.
-I hold a patient's hand cause they're nervous while they're getting an IV inserted. I tell them to take deep breaths and try to distract them. When it's all over, they squeeze my hand.
-A family member calls me in tears because they're worried about not being their for their loved one. -A patient down the hall dies and family members are crying in the hallway.
-A patient cries out for help and when I ask her what I can do for her, she asks me just to stay with her.
-I need to take a deep breath and wait a minute before I go into a room so that I can treat a persistent and overbearing family member with cheerfulness and patience.

These are just a few examples. I do have funny stories and sad stories and stories of patients who drive me nuts. But for the most part, it's all in those little moments. I'll try to be a good blogger who doesn't bore you with the same kind of material all the time, but I can't promise anything. :)