I am in my 2nd year of school, and I am an Extern on my 2nd midnight shift on a busy med-surg floor. I feel like someone who doesn't know squat. Nursing clinicals are not like the "real deal". Man, I could do 1-2 patients all day long. I will answer your call light before you even push it, I will fluff your pillow and I will talk about your grandchildren if you needed. I can pick apart everypage in your chart and I will know your consults back to the 1900's Book knowledge no problem. Running with the Big Dawg....wow! My second night at the hospital, 12 patients! One was confused in restraints (taking cheap shoots at the staff), one was psych and MAD, one patient's HR went down to 44 with a pulse ox of 80%, BP 90/something. This was after the nurse gave the pt morph(patient's daughter at bedside saying her mom was moaning in pain). Rapid response was called, they had to give narcan to reverse the effects of the morph, intubate and down to CCU. Talk about a heart stopper, since I did the assessments on the patient, I had to give the doctor a down low on the patient and make sure everything went down to CCU. As I am walking down the hall to get on the elevator, I am wondering why all of the patient's doors are closed.......transporting a dead body! (I never saw that on my fluffy day shift clinical)
Need I mention the charting? What happened to our FULL head to toe assessments, counting 5-35/min bowel sounds, yada, yada, yada? One nurse was like, "Honey, you are not in nursing school, this is the real deal, you need to go faster, you GOT stuff to do!" I am working with an RN since I can not pass meds.
Eight hours flew by like crazy, I did not even realize I did not get to the bathroom. Lunch? I don't think this group takes lunches. Then 10 or 5 minutes to 7AM, another patients IV alarm kept going off....air bubbles, occlusion. I fought with that darn thing till after 7A. I finally got the nurse who had that room for the day shift. I stood there with her for another 10-15 minutes. She ended up going to a new IV site.
It was a learning experience. I have been keeping a journal outlining what I learned and what I would like to do differently for the next week. I have been working with some awesome nurses, should I leave them little thank you notes?
Back to my original question......WHEN will I feel like I know exactly what the heck I am doing and not 2nd guess myself after it is over? I can not sleep playing my night over and over in my head. I am to would up to sleep:yawn:
