The humility of it all

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Specializes in Psych, Emergency, Med/Surg.

First day of hospital clinicals for PCT class. LOVED IT! My preceptor was awesome. So I'm all gung hoh and excited when I arrive on the floor, a Cardio PCU, and I'm ready to get my hands dirty. :yeah: I start getting pt's ready for their showers, do a bunch of linen changes, and then.......... A(n) RN catches me tidying up a room and asks me to take the v/s on the pt in that room. I think to myself.....hmm never used a dynamap, only know manual, oh well, I can figure it out. So I tell RN I've never used dynamap before, if she could just observe me. She says sure. Well, I had no problem, it's pretty self exlpanatory. Nurse says, good job. I'm thinking, awesome! But then.............I'm assigned to take 1100 v/s for 10 pt's. I got this. So everything is going great until about my 4th pt when I realizethat they all have the same BP 120/50! I'm like oh no, this ISNT RIGHT. So I back track, lol, I WAS READING THE WRONG # OF COURSE! I was reading the little guiding #'s that display on the machine all the time. How funny!!:chuckle :rollIt's a good thing it stores each reading, otherwise I would've been redoing everyone's b/p's!

That RN had me thinking I knew what I was doing, when all along I should've been remembering that I'M THE STUDENT, THERE TO LEARN! And I don't know a damn thing, yet.:bow:

Just thought I would share that little bit of humility.

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LOL we are just human! thanks for sharing! hehe and I hope you continue to enjoy! goodluck to ya!

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thanks for posting this chunliomyrn2b ! glad to know that you dont have to die of embarrassment every time you make a mistake.

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:omy: That is just tooooooooo funny. I will have to remember this one - you made my day.

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LOL! I had a similar experience with a dynamap once. I was a brand new CNA and I was getting vs on a pt. (post-surgical). Well, her pulseox was 64%! I think my own heart stopped, and I stuck my head out of the room (the RN was right ouside thankfully) to tell the nurse...she comes RUNNING in...and it turned out I had been looking at the heart rate! Thankfully it was a super nice nurse who just laughed it off...

good thing we can all laugh about this kind of thing!

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Specializes in Psych, Emergency, Med/Surg.

Glad some of you got a kick out of that! I'm sure that that's just one of many more to come during my journey! Also glad to know I'm not alone :D

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Regarding the original post, I am curious as to why the RN told you that you had done a good job. This led you to believe that you were performing this task correctly. It is almost like the orginal RN was not really paying attention or just setting you up to fail. I would think that she would have corrected you if you were making errors.

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