No, really - what is your EMERGENCY?

This used to be the journal of a nursing student at a prestigious 4 year university that will still remain unnamed. This is now the journal of a Registered Nurse working in an Emergency Department in a major US city. All names have been changed to protect the stupid and the mean. There is no educational value in this journal, sometimes it will be downright mean and catty - this is where I come to vent!

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

End of Clinicals Eval

Well, I said I would post after my clinical evaluation. Unfortunately, I have nothing interesting to say. I went, she said I did well and then I left. No major revelations, but that isn't a shock. Oh, she also gave us our "big" paper back. I got an excellent grade, also not a shock. Not because I am such an excellent student but because my clinical instructor can't do anything mean. I don't think she gave anyone a bad grade, even if they deserved it. I am finding that there is no consistency in the standards at this school. They are downright anal about some things, but other (equally important) things are very slack. So for all of you non-medical types out there reading, if the standards are this varied in one school, imagine what they are like between schools! This means that there is a wide range of competency in the nursing world. Could be kind of scary........

We are baking cookies and stuff tonight to say thank you to the staff of the floor we did our clinical rotation on. We are spending a lot of time thanking people for doing their job and letting us watch. Oh yeah, and letting us change dirty bed linens and wipe nasty butts and measure out liquid stool. Wait, shouldn't they be making us cookies????

Monday, November 29, 2004

Thanksgiving, end of semester, and other stuff

So, we just returned from a nice long break for Thanksgiving. Some of us were lucky and got the whole week off to spend with our families. Others weren't as lucky, oh well, it all comes around eventually.
This week we have our "End of Clinicals Evaluations". This is an opportunity for your clinical instructor to tell you what you did right and wrong over the semester. If the mid-term clinical evals are any indicator, I will hear such excellent comments as, "You are trying to learn this info too fast, you need to slow down and enjoy it." Yes, that was very helpful. Listen, this is my second degree and my second career. My first career sometimes moved at the speed of light, it was either learn it and move on or get run over. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with making sure you have a good handle on things like giving shots and starting IV's, but I don't see why I need to "slow down and enjoy" changing bed linens, wiping people's butts, changing adult diapers, or giving someone a bath. I am fascinated to see what pearl of wisdom my clinical instructor comes up with next! I also got marked as the best mark on almost all categories. The reason I was given for why I didn't get the best mark on everything was that if I had, I would be able to do my clinical instructor's job. Well, not really. I may do an above average job of being a nursing student, but that doesn't mean that I would do an above average job of being a nurse. It is all relative......more to follow on the end of clinical eval......
And finally, it is time for final exams. I'm sure this will generate much hate and discontent.....stay tuned!

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Skits in college

Here at our prestigious 4 year university nationally ranked nursing school, we have to take a class on human and family growth and development. It is really a psychology course and should be an online course. We have it for 3 hours at one shot in the evening. It sucks, it is boring, and one of the instructors is just not very good. She is very stuck on the middle class, married, 2.3 children model which is not very realistic in the real world. She gets all huffy if you try to defend a family model that is anything different. Anyway, we had to read a book about cultural differences in health care for this class. Good book, good idea to read it, could have discussed it in one class and been done with it. Did we do that? Nooooooooo! We had to drag this thing out over 4 small group discussion sessions and then, this is the best part, present an "Oprah-style" skit to the class summing up your opinions. A SKIT. We are in college and we are doing skits. Honestly, I am paying to go to a school for a professional education and I am being treated like I am in middle school. It wasn't worth the 10 minutes my group spent planning it, it wasn't worth the 7 minutes it took to present it. Then to top it all off, they made us take a group picture at the end. I swear, it was like I was back in the Girl Scouts at a campfire!!!!

Hey, only 18 months left to graduation!!!!!

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Mmm, immunity

This is a hilarious addition to the story of thousand-breasted immunity.
When my brother was a student, he lived in an international dorm. There was a girl on his floor from Cameroon, Africa, and she was really a nice girl. Well, everyone in this little dorm started getting sick with this flu-like ailment, and my brother and this girl decided to have a competition on who would stay healthier longer. See, my brother had the immunity of every woman who's creamy breast milk he had devoured voraciously as a preemie; The Cameroonian girl had great immunity because she had actually had every disease- malaria, typhus, hep. A, and a myriad of other tropical diseases.
In the end, my brother got sick first, but he recovered after 3 days, the Cameroonian girl got sick after that and missed class for a week. So there you go- breasts are more than just a lot of jiggly fun

Celine signing off

Yolanda likes balls...

I would have loved, LOVED to help with your wet to dry dressings on the scrotum. Nothing says "hey there, how are you doing today?" to your patient like ripping the dead skin off a wound.
I am glad that the rotation at "that floor" is over! I hated that damn place, it was full of poor people and Lepers and old crazy people. I am so glad to be rid of it, good riddance, you bastards!! No more gaping, fat, stinkin' vaginas! No more necrotic, rotting, putrid stasis ulcers and NO MORE of that fake, old, hypertensive, overly emotional, slow talking, fake red headed BITCH! Ahh, that felt good.

See you guys later.

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Celine sucks.

Thanks a lot for not being there for clinicals tomorrow Celine. Now you won't be able to help me with my patient who has GANGRENE OF THE SCROTUM. Yes that is right, you read it correctly. Wet to dry dressings twice a day.....ohhhhh what fun!!!!!!!

Yeah, I'm pissed....

So, I had the joy of turning 21 this past Sunday, and instead of having a good ole time getting shit faced, instead I was at the urgent care clinic getting diagnosed with STREP THROAT! What the hell? And, since I went home so my mommy could take care of me, I didn't bring any work or anything to study.
But, as a sliver lining to the cloud...there is a God in heaven, I am sure of it now. I went to the ABC store and told the clerk it was my first time, and he gave me 5 free mini bottles and a key chain...and no, I didn't sleep with him. I can't drink it though, because I am now on antibiotics!
The bonus of Strep is that I got out of clinicals...though, technically, after 24 hours of Antibiotic treatment, I am no longer contagious and I am free and clear to do whatever I want. But hey, if the instructor with her MSN doesn't know that, then I am not going to tell her....

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Long time no write

So, I got yelled at yesterday for not blogging. We are busy here at nursing school, you know! We have finals coming up and several papers have been due in the past couple of weeks. Things are starting to get tense as the semester winds down. This week many of us had an interesting experience. We had to wear ostomy bags around for the day. For those who don't know, an ostomy can be where part of your intestine is pulled through your skin and you defecate through that. They attach a bag to it (on the outside) and it collects the feces. Sounds kind of gross, but many people have these for a variety of medical reasons. In order to have us sort of understand what it is like to wear one, we did it for a day. I have to say that it was hot and itchy and my clothes didn't fit quite right. Fortunately for me, it wasn't filled with feces and I could take it off at the end of the day!

Other things we have learned lately:

Celine loves sex and doesn't mind talking about it with anyone.
Cocaine is bad according to our Pharmacology professor.
PWS (a fellow student) is an idiot and should be shot and hopefully will not pass her NCLEX and will never become a practicing nurse.
Lovenox shots suck - both giving and receiving.
My patient's dog, Tippy, was not in my patient's hospital room this week.
APA format from 2004 and from 2005 is NOT the same.
The most important thing Celine learned a few weeks ago in our most useless class was that the Japanese put a special sticker on the cars that old people drive.
Just because you are in a professional education program doesn't mean you know how to act like an adult.
And finally, if you don't get the pilot light lit to your heater by the gas company when they turn your gas on, they won't come back and do it later. This is important because it is frickin' cold here!

Happy Birthday to the US Marine Corps (10 Nov) and Thank You to all of our Veterans!