My rehabilitation clinic experience.

[futureRN_Anastasia]

I started volunteering in a rehabilitation clinic last week. I need a certain amount of hours to be accepted to MScPT, and even if I decide on BScN instead, I still like to have some experience in a real clinic. Although my post is not about nursing, I learned A LOT from this forum about patient care, and so I want to share what is going on with me. It really helps me now, to be able to deal with patients in all sorts of moods and to help them no matter if they are pleasant or not at all.

Thank you, allnurses, for that! :redpinkhe

I've learned a lot in the last week. One thing is anatomy books and theory, seeing a patient in pain in front of you is completely different, and hearing that they are feeling better or a "thank you" overweights the grumpiness of other patients. I am coming home from the volunteering, taking off my scrubs, getting a shower, and falling asleep immediately, but I will adjust, I'm sure. Too many years sitting on my butt in front of a computer, I guess he-he.

I have a probably stupid question, but did it happen to you in the very beginning that after thorough patient assessment you find that you ache in exactly those places that patient described? It kinda freaks me out, I studied that it sometimes happens to people of all med./psych. related professions at the very beginning and is even called "medical student syndrome", but I'm just curious, did it happen to you too?

Another thing is immunization. Although I don't work with bodily fluids half as much as nurses do, I still work with a lot of different people, and some of them have conditions or diseases in addition to the ones that they came for treatment. AIDS, HIV, Hepatitis, TB, what not. The clinic is very relaxed about personnel immunization, and didn't ask or advise any. I wonder, what immunization did you do? I'm going to a family doctor tomorrow to ask to get immunized and advise on what should I immunize against, but again, I am curious.