cbrite

I totally agree GrnTea, that's a great way of looking at things- I'll definitely keep that in mind! One of my teachers once told us to try plugging our noses and to breathe through a straw for as long as we can to understand how frightening it is to not be able to breathe, and man was she right it's a horrible feeling. It's good to hear you liked your experience on a pulmonary unit Ashley, I was told by the placement co-ordinator that it's a very challenging unit and I'm going to learn a lot. All this information is very helpful, thank you guys! I'm planning on doing a little research package for my own benefit so all of this gets me off to a great start!

Good tips, thank you classicdame!

Thank you missnurse01! I know it's quite a broad area, that's interesting I hadn't thought of people who are post-transplant!

Hi everybody, I'm about to start my two final clinicals as a practical nurse student, the first is on a medicine unit that focuses on pulmonary patients. I'm just wondering if any of you savvy nurses out there have some experience on this particuar type of unit? What should I be prepared /study for? I'm picturing in my mind a lot of COPD type complications, pneumonia, TB (which I know for sure they deal with on this unit) is this about right? I have done a previous medicine clinical on a stroke unit as well as a thoracic surgery unit- would I be right in assuming that it will have quite a few similarities to the thoracic surgery unit in terms of the patient diagnoses? I'm really excited for this clinical, any input or advice you guys have is greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone! I'm just starting my first clinical as an LPN student and loving it! The only thing is... I had an anxiety attack today before and during report ( I have no idea what was being said I was just concentrating on not hitting the floor). I'm just wondering if any of you wise nurses have any tips for me to deal with this in the future? Have you guys experienced this and how do you avoid/cope with it? What upset me about this was the fact that I wasn't afraid or stressed out this morning at all, I was naturally a little nervous but mostly I was just excited! I'm thinking maybe my excitement was misinterpreted as "danger! danger!" in my body. I have had panic attacks in the past with no apparent trigger but I try to be a very positive person and come prepared for classes and clinical to avoid unneccessary stress. I'm hoping this won't happen again but I just wanted to reach out to some nurses that might have the same issue as me.... maybe just knowing that I'm not alone will help me feel better. It was a huge blow to my ego having to go and tell my intructor that I was having a panic attack, but as you know when in the midst of one you truly think you're going to pass out or throw up on someone so I thought it was best to give her a heads up if she found me on the floor hahaha! I laugh about it now but it was incredibly embarrasing and my confidence went way down today. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to give input or read this, it means a lot to me :)