Did you know.....

Did you know that men can get a thing called "retrograde ejaculation" where when they ejaculate, it goes backward into their bladder??

No good clinical stories

I apologize for the lack of interesting clinical stories. My clinicals are very boring and no one really wants to hear stories about old men with heart problems and bad breath. But stand by, there is potential for more fire jumping stories!

Exams last week

Last week we had two exams, one in Maternal/Newborn health and the other in our "Intro to Nursing" class. Maternal/Newborn was relatively straight forward, but Intro to Nursing sucked bad. It is kind of a philosophy of nursing class, the book for the class is called "The Art of Nursing." Supposedly, it is one of the things that makes the Bachelor degree program different from the Associate degree program. Well, they can have it. It sucks. I love the professor, she is nice, very smart and very competent. She is actually one of my favorite faculty in the School of Nursing. She has great stories, and is very realistic of what we should be doing as nurses and what should be expected and what we should expect as new nurses. BUT, her class SUCKS!! We spend hours discussing things like the difference between caring and compassion and the difference between spirituality and religion. Gag. She assigns chapters in the book and also research and clinical articles that we have to read. The class is divided into 3 different sections with 3 different professors. However, we all have the same test. That means she can only test off of the readings. Well, what if your class discusses the article differently??? Then you are screwed on the test. And her questions???? Totally ambiguous. Usually, you can adequately rationalize at least 2 of the choices. One of my friends summed it up nicely by saying, "It is kind of like the question is, Which color is teal more like? and your two choices are A. Blue and B. Green." At least it is only a one credit hour class each semester, so it can't hurt your GPA too bad.

Happy 21st Morgan!
Welcome Home, Alex!

Back to the Grind

Spring Break is over. Darn. Let the stupidity begin again!!

Dogs in class

Last week, one of the students brought her dog to class. I find that a bit odd, and I am a dog lover. Not an assistance dog, just her regular old dog. She says she forgot what time class started. How do you forget what time class starts when it has been the same for the past 3 months? And it was a stupid looking dog too, a pug/beagle mix. She calls it a puggle. Just dumb. Almost as dumb my clinical instructors hat. Kind of the same color too.

Just in time for a break....

So, last week I had 3 papers due and one exam. Kind of sucks since I only really have class 2 days a week. I have clinicals 2 days a week also, and with the commute time to those, I ended up burning the midnight oil and drinking a lot of coffee to get it all done. One of the papers was a group thing for my community health clinical. Yeah, the clinical I hate with a passion and if I could get away with quitting I would. Needless to say, no one in my group had any motivation to get that paper done. It was due on Monday and two of the three of us were going to be gone for the weekend. It was also a big sports weekend for my prestigious university, so group member #3 was going to be busy with that. We decided that we would get most of the paper finished by Friday and then just look it over Sunday night for last minute changes. That plan went all to hell when I had to take one of our group members to the emergency room following a mishap involving bonfires and alcohol. She will forever now be known as "Fire Jumper." Unfortunately for the sole remaining member, she had to do all the finishing touches. The paper turned out pretty good, Fire Jumper is all fixed up and on her way to Spring Break in Europe, and I have been enjoying a week of not much work.

On Monday, I got into a pissing match with my community health clinical instructor. We have to do an "intervention" for this class that has something to do with the community we are serving through our clinical site. My clinical site is a cardiac rehab center in a local hospital. The participants come in and complete an hour long class 3 days a week for 12 weeks. The program is very scheduled and was developed to make sure it meets Medicare guidelines so most of the participants will have insurance pay. I am sharing this site with Fire Jumper so we have to come up with two different interventions. Our preceptor (the nurse we work for) gave us two really good ideas that will also help them update their program materials. I briefed these two ideas at our post clinical conference and my instructor (see previous post regarding the stupid hat) shot them both down stating that they don't have enough teaching time involved. When does she think we have teaching time??? Like I have explained to her numerous times, this is a scheduled program designed to meet the requirements for Medicare. I can't just come in one day and say, "I'd like to change your program today so that I can meet the stupid requirements for my school project." She can't seem to grasp this fact! Also, there are other students who fulfilled their "intervention" by putting together a science fair style tri-fold bulletin board and putting it in the lobby. So, I'm supposed to teach a class and they do arts and crafts??? I hate to be the geek who quotes the syllabus, but there is nothing in there about our interventions having to be periods of instruction. And to top it off, Fire Jumper wasn't there that day (she was recovering from the fire incident) and I was trying to look out for her with regards to the intervention. My stupid hat wearing clinical instructor told me to just worry about me and she will work with Fire Jumper on her intervention. So I am supposed to just kick her to the curb?? I don't think so, I don't work like that. She and I are going to have it out before the end of the semester!

This week we also had one last skills lab. The one we have been waiting for all semester. We learned how to start IV's and draw blood. We had previously done a virtual reality thing to practice, but on Tuesday, we got to do the real thing. We started slow, stabbing the fake arm and the practice veins. Then we moved on to the real thing...each other. Everyone got the chance to start an IV on their lab partner. I had a great partner, she got a vein on the first try. This is amazing, as my difficult veins have caused grown men to cry trying to start IV's or draw blood.

Spring Break starts next week. Our Friday class got cancelled since our professor assumed no one would show up anyway. She's probably right. I wish I were going to be lounging on a beach somewhere drinking margaritas, but I need some money (and I'm a responsible reservist), so I will be donning the tree suit and impersonating a Marine officer for the week. I will enjoy the week off from school, do something I like doing and understand, and maybe even try to get ahead on school work (HA HA)!!

One down, One to go

Tonight was my last night in my Maternal/Newborn Health clinical. I have to say that I think I will miss going. This is a big step for me. I'm just not the ooing, awwing type over babies. I think they are cute, but I don't feel the need to stop and hold every one I see and I also don't feel the need to talk baby talk. So I kind of thought that I would have a hard time with this clinical thinking that it would be all sugary sweet and everything. I have to say that I had a good time!! I think it was more due to my clinical instructor (who is awesome!) and my fellow students. Don't get me wrong, I still have no desire to be a labor and delivery/nursery/postpartum nurse!!

Unfortunately, I do have another two months or so of my community health clinical. That clinical just plain sucks. It is boring, we don't have a mission, there is no focus, and my clinical instructor sucks pretty bad. We have a paper due on Monday and I have no desire to work on it. For the first time in a very long time, I will do the minimum amount to get by and be done with it. I can't even describe how bad my clinical instructor sucks. She doesn't pass along pertinent information, she never comes to see us at our clincal sites, she never answers our phone calls (despite the fact her phone is surgically attached to her face) or emails, and she wears THE STUPIDEST HAT I HAVE EVER SEEN!!! She wears this hat that kind of looks like the hats the dwarves wore in Snow White only it is made out of fake fur. And she wears it ALL THE TIME. Inside, outside, cold, hot.....ALL THE TIME! Sometimes I can't get passed the hat and all I hear coming out of her mouth sounds like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoons.

One week till Spring Break!!!! Don't get any ideas, I'm not doing anything cool.