Nursing is nothing like a hotdog

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Throughout the weeks, we have been practicing every little detail of every scenario that we could encounter during our first semester in the clinical setting. Everything from injections, to catheters, to med administration; we made sure that we would be prepared for whatever came our way.

When the time came to hit the floor, we were the most cheerful and self-confident group that ever walked through the door in all of the history of nursing. After a short group meeting, we headed out on our own...under the care and watchful eye of our instructor and the nursing staff of course. The day went on like one would expect on the first day. Taking vitals here, feeding there, and running to lend a hand wherever else I was needed.

Then, something unexpected happened. While standing at the nurse's station and listening in on a new employee's orientation, the head nurse turned to me and asked, "would you like to administer her TB test?" My mind began to race and I thought back to my class lab. I've performed at least two-dozen of these things on hotdogs, how much different could it be?! I dove at the chance.

I confidently walked around the station where the new employee was sitting and prepared for the injection. The employee caught a glimpse of the huge red badge hanging under my ID. It reads: "STUDENT NURSE". She seemed to get a little uneasy and finally admitted that she is somewhat paranoid of needles. As I was putting on my gloves, you could see her comfort level dropping rapidly. The two nurses reassured her that it wouldn't be painful and to just look away. I lowered the needle to her arm and said, "Now you'll feel just a little pinch".

I began to insert the syringe, however, something was different, something...unexpected. There was resistance! It felt like the needle wouldn't go in without a bit of force. My mind raced back to the lab again. My hotdog wasn't this resistant! I pushed the needle in just a little further and began pushing on the plunger. Was I too deep? I think I'm too deep! It never felt this deep on my hotdog!

I see the bubble begin to appear under the skin. It seemed like it was taking an eternity. I continued thinking, It didn't take this long on my hotdog! After the syringe was empty, i withdrew it, applied a bit of gauze, and cleaned everything up. I kept thinking to myself, too deep, too long. I must have scarred this poor person for life!

I turned to her and asked, "So how was it"? I prepared myself for the worst. "It wasn't too bad", she replied. At that moment I mentally breathed a sigh of relief and I realized that nursing, is nothing like a hotdog.

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Cool story :) I was at suspense at some point

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That was awesome! And a good thing to remember throughout your program. Theory and practice are a lot different and as long as you are prepared to find fewer hotdogs than you do in class, you'll get through it all okay.

(Also -- hotdogs!? That's the first time I've heard of that. I suppose they are more flesh-textured than the oranges we practiced on)

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Yeah, I may have been a bit nervous on the inside during the whole thing but wanted to make sure that my outward appearance remained confident and calm.

As for the hotdogs, this is the first year the college has tried them in the lab. They used oranges in the past.

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Yeah, I may have been a bit nervous on the inside during the whole thing but wanted to make sure that my outward appearance remained confident and calm.

As for the hotdogs, this is the first year the college has tried them in the lab. They used oranges in the past.

Great job! Pretty cool accomplishment, huh?

We used hot dogs back in school too for TB practice.

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We used chicken legs to practice intraosseous injections/lines. Crunch, crunch.

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Specializes in public health, women's health, reproductive health.

Love this!

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Specializes in PACU, pre/postoperative, ortho.

We also used hotdogs for TB, oranges for IM. Good story!

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I always just lied when I was doing skills for the first time. I remember my first IV in the ER (unless you do ER as a preceptorship you will NOT have a lot of experience with IVs coming out of school) the guy asked me how many I had done and I said oh hundreds by now.

Obviously it was my first time doing it but don't let them think that! Oh and the IV went fine...just some oozing blood from being taking out the needle without enough pressure....woops

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That was cute, awesome story

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Specializes in LTC.

Hot dogs? Wow that's crazy! Lol when we practiced tb injections in LPN school we just practiced on each other! With normal saline of course :)

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We used hotdogs too. Nice story, OP.:)

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