Nursing student with wrist injury

[pastel_poppy]

Hi everyone,

I am going to graduate from my program in a year, and my biggest fear is about my right wrist-I am right-handed and had a work-related injury a few months before I started nursing school. I got a ganglion cyst in my wrist that was excised a month before I started school. Since then it has been growing stronger and stronger, but I have had the fear in the back of my mind about turning heavy patients or needing to do prolonged chest compressions.

Well I just had my basic life support renewal class and after that 2 hours my wrist and arm have been so sore that I am really not sure if I should pursue working with adults at all. So far I am pretty open as to what field to go into-I was thinking OR, ICU, mother/baby or NICU. I was wondering if anyone has dealt with something similar and whether they felt like it interfered with their job. Obviously in a code I would do chest compressions on a patient, but I am considering if I should try to get into the NICU so as to prevent this injury from getting worse.

Appreciate any advice

[brownbook]

I think you're over thinking this. A nurse can work her whole career in acute care, even ER, and seldom do compressions. There are usually many eager helpers in a code fighting over who gets to do compressions.

A bigger concern is day to day basic patient care. Turning patients, assisting them up out of bed, stand by walk them to the bathroom, or lifting them up to place a bedpan, etc.

If you can't do that you may have a legitimate reason to carefully choose where you'll work.

You have a year for your wrist to heal. Are you getting physical therapy for your wrist?

[pastel_poppy]

You make a good point, I do tend to worry or overthink. I'm not getting physical therapy now because it was healing well and felt back to normal, but the CPR class showed me there may be some limitations if I have to use it excessively. I'm just worried about getting into a situation where I have to use it and injure it through bad mechanics or something. I will look into physical therapy, it's a good idea.