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!

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Update

Since I haven't written in a while, here's an update:

Maternal/Newborn Health: the class is pretty good. Who knew there were SO MANY videos of women giving birth! My clinicals are also pretty good. I'm at a small hospital which has is ads and disads. They only have about 110 births a month and unfortunately if none of those happen on a Wednesday, I won't get to assist during one. Good thing is, plenty of free parking. Too bad it is an hour drive from my house.

Community Health: the class is also pretty good. My clinicals suck!!!! There has been some kind of legal snafu between my university and my clinical site. There are three of us assigned there and we weren't allowed to go last week and we won't be allowed to go this week. This sucks since we have papers and projects that we have to complete. Those projects will be very difficult to complete if we have no clinical site!!!!

Nursing Research: I have this 3 hour class right after lunch. It makes a wonderful place to take a nap. No offense to researchers, but 3 hours a week on how to conduct research and write it up, is way, way boring.

The other thing going on is that we are in the process of applying for student nurse externships for the summer. We have to complete at least 200 hours of work as either a nurse extern or a nurse aid this summer. The application process has been a real pain in the butt. Most all want clinical references on their own special forms. This wouldn't be that bad, but most of us only have one or maybe two people who can give us clinical references. Unfortunately for them, those people have been stuck writting many, many letters all with different requirements. I feel bad for them, but they had to know this was coming!

That's about all. Coolest thing happened last week in my nursing research class. The professor kindly asked two girls who were talking incessantly to please stop. A few minutes later when they had not, she less than kindly asked them to leave her class. It was beautiful! I wish it were done more often. Perhaps then, some of my fellow students would be able to develop some manners!

1 Comments:

  • At 12:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yolanda
    Hey girl (el al) welcome to the ranks. I've been an ER Nurse for almost 30 years. I am just finishing my BSN (finally). I've felt exactly the same way about research. I've managed to make it this far in my career without knowing HOW to do research, HOW to crunch the numbers etc. I only read the abstract and conclusions anyway. For community health a friend who is qualified to precept agreed to sign anything I needed signed, so I made the whole thing up. I figured that I've done it for all this time, maybe I know something. Truthfully I don't think anything has been added to my knowledge base (at least not anything useful)by the college experience. The changes I have noticed are in my character....I am much more tolerant, patient, cognizant of differences. Good luck to all of you in your careers, Nursing is a WONDERFUL profession. Oh yeah one more gem from experience, be clear about the definition of "professionalism". You will be told, repeatedly, that it is "your professional responsibility...". I think this is where Nursing(es) have been sucked into overwork, underappreciation. Also check Flexner's classic criteria defining a profession, cogitate on "functions autonomously...".Good luck my darlings, make us proud.

     

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