What Diagnosis Did your First Patient in Clinicals Have?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..

Mine was a woman with a severe case of cellulitis in her good leg. It was ulcerated, and wet to dry dressings were applied. The reason I say; "Her good leg," is because her bad leg was one with skin stretched over bone. I asked her how it got that way, and she said when she was an 11 yo, she was hit by a car, and her mom pulled her free before it ran over her entire body, removing the skin from the bone. The skin and the fatty tissue never grew back.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Wow that is an interesting story Fran!! If I remember right, my first patient was a gentleman who had had a stroke and had some residual physical and neurological effects. (This was in a nursing home). He was very talkative and a very interesting person. I was too nervous to remember much more about nursing care except trying to do that mini-mental status exam, but he was so funny and friendly he made things a lot easier. I enjoyed taking care of him.

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Specializes in Occ health, Med/surg, ER.

If I can remember right, her main dx was hemiparesis due to CVA.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Post-op total gastrectomy, pneumonia.

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Specializes in ccu cardiovascular.

Congestive heart failure

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Specializes in DOU.

MRSA.. the poor woman ended up having half her lady parts cut away. It was horrific.

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Specializes in LTC, office.

A lovely lady dying of breast CA with bone and liver mets. :o

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Specializes in Me Surge.

Anal Abcess. I was worried about having to the wound care. When I got to clinical I found out the abcess was healed and the patient was in for colostomy take down. Whew! What a relief.

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Specializes in Med-Surg/Peds/O.R./Legal/cardiology.

A man in his 40's with mets. kidney ca. He suffered terribly! I've never forgotten him. :o

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Male, 63 y/o s/p superpubic tube, MS, CVA, HTN, CHF, DM, MRSA, stage IV on the coccyx. He was a mess. Not only those dx (and a ton more) but he was an enormous man!! 6ft7in and 350lbs!! Ok so I am 4ft11in and 95lbs! Yeah! That was fun.

He was a great guy though. Very sweet, very understanding of the time it took me to position him, move him, do head to toe assessments, etc. He was actually pretty amazed I was able to handle his AM care and treatments. *I guess having 20 yrs CNA experience under my belt helped me with the tricks of the trade to move and position him*

He sent a great letter of compliment of my skills and abilities to the Director of my nursing program and my Clinical instructor. I was over the moon. I still stop by the LTC facility he's a resident in once in a while to visit with him. Even with all his ails, he always has a smile on his face and greets each new set of students with open arms. He loves "teaching" students he says :lol2:

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Specializes in ER, Trauma, Advanced Care.

Acute Renal Failure due to viral infection ... 20 years old

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Shows how many years I've been doing this. My first was a "lady partsl stenosis". The girl was getting marries and was still a virgin. The Dr had her in the hospital over night to "stretch " the lady parts. I remember it so well because , the nurses the night before her surg. shaved her. The Dr wa mad because the girl was getting married, and " what in the world would her husband think of her now' . Oh my gosh.....talk about a reduculous DX . Now days that would be considered fraud.

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