Week Eight: January 4-5, 2010

Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and I am so glad I am finally sitting down to give you all an update. As you know I started my second clinical rotation, I believe it will continue until early or mid March. I was assigned to Garden Grove Hospital with a teacher named Mrs. Espinoza and I am thrilled! She is an awesome clinical teacher, things are going to be a lot different this rotation, I am going to learn so much. She is a firm believer in doing any and all procedures available, within our scope of practice of course! She is a very intelligent nurse who has been a teacher in the ROP LVN program since 1987! Monday was very similar to my first clinical day at Kindred because we completed the same orientation duties. We introduced ourselves to each other, read facility policies and procedures, and went on a scavenger hunt around the hospital. I am so excited about the group, once again there are twelve of us and they all seem to be really awesome people. One of my friends Autum (who lives in Mission Viejo!) and I have decided to carpool which is awesome for saving gas money! Not only do we carpool to clinicals on Monday and Tuesday but she will be joining Janet, Keith, and I in the car to get to class Wednesday through Friday. Mrs. E is a very tough clinical teacher, she expects the documentation for the assessment to be handed in to her no later than 9:30am and the DAR (data, action, response) by 10:00am. It will be very helpful in prioritizing my tasks because before we all know it, I will have passed pharm and will be passing meds by the end of February! How exciting!? On Tuesday, she decided to only give us one patient so we were able to get into the swing of things at a different site. My patient was the sweetest Vietnamese man who was quite independent and had been admitted for dehydration and sepsis. Sepsis is a pretty severe illness in which the bloodstream is overwhelmed with bacteria. I was able to perform my morning tasks and document before I needed to hand them in. Mrs. E decided I was not challenged enough and that she would send me to the Wound Care clinic. I was thrilled! I loved the Wound Care team at Kindred and was excited to meet them at Garden Grove. It was neat because the Would Care team had their own office (turned into a clinic) and outpatients would walk in, be treated, and be on their way out. I was responsible for taking vital signs and assisting with transfers and observing the procedures. I saw a few pressure ulcers and a two really exciting things! An elderly lady came in and her leg was previously edematous (swelling caused by fluid in the body tissues) and they had applied a soft cast on it and the doctor needed to view it and determine what was the next plan of action. Imagine, how terrific a body part would smell if it was wrapped up in a soft cast and not washed for over a week. Well, lucky me, I was given the divine opportunity to wash the sweet old woman's leg and foot so they could apply another wrap to it. Boy, was that fun. Why don't wound care clinics carry masks? Oh, well. I also was able to do a bit of translating from the doctor to the sweet spanish-speaking woman about her condition and prognosis. Right as it was time to go, the nurses from wound care made me follow them and rush to the intensive care unit for a wound debridement. Wound debridement is the medical removal of a patient's dead, damaged, or infected tissue to improve the healing potential of the remaining healthy tissue, how exciting!?! As we walked into the room, we all noticed that the man had a broken ankle, in which the procedure was to take place. Of course, I elected to be the one stabilizing his ankle for the doctor. Side note, but I don't think I ever want to become a podiatrist. Anyway, this is where it gets fun, as I am stabilizing his foot the doctor is vigorously scraping (sorry) the inside of his foot. The wound was about the size of a tennis ball on the outer portion of his right ankle. It looked awful, everything was so awesome to watch, I don't want to gross you all out but I was in awe. I started thinking about how awesome it would be to know what to do in all of these situations, the procedure seemed really animalistic. I don't know if that is the best word but it was very abrupt and seemed so logical, get the bad stuff out so the new and healthy stuff can get better. I really enjoyed watching the doctor's every move, seeing what he chose to do, what supplies he preferred I just started thinking, I want to know how to do everything so I can help anyone at any given moment, even if it were to be on a stranded island with limited supplies. It is so cool when you know what you are doing is actually exactly what you know you want to do. I know i am headed in the right direction and I am so excited to find my nitch in the medical field! As far as class is going, it has definitely become more strenuous, a lot more things have become expected of us. I am in pharmacology and integumentary and am learning so much. It actually feels like I am becoming a nurse! Next Friday we will be giving injections to inanimate objects like oranges and hot dogs and a few weeks following we will be practicing on each other!!!! I need to go read, I hope you enjoyed the update!