TMH Rehab

I enjoyed clinicals this Friday at TMH Rehab. All our patients were really nice and the one we took vital signs on was very excited to have nursing students. I got to practice 2 bed baths and made quite a few beds. We did forget to lower a bed and put up on of the rails on a bed and I had to put back on the isolation gown to go do it. I do wish that there was a little more to do. Our patients were mainly resting or at therapy so there was a lot of down time for us. I am really excited for next week's clinical though, especially because it's the afternoon shift and I don't have to be up at 5 am!!

Midterm Done!

So I gotta say, yesterday before I studied with Nikki I was stressing out a little. I felt like i had so much more to learn and felt so behind. But we went through the Fundamentals Success book that had a lot of questions like the test. I was able to figure out most of them and that really calmed me down. And for good reason. I did pretty well on the test. I think I got an 88 maybe higher depending on if Mrs. Damelio drops one of the questions. I am happy with that for my first test in nursing school. But will definitely start studying earlier for the next test. Tomorrow I have my lab which should be interesting with learning bed baths, brushing patients teeth, and shaving. And I don't have a clinical this week so that will give me some time to work on the paper since my parents are coming into town Friday.

First Clinical Done!

So first off, I am very proud of myself for getting to the clinical 15 minutes early. I am NOT a morning person and also have a tendency to run late. But it helped that I gave myself 45 minutes to get there. I was pretty nervous about meeting my patient but after hearing that some of us would be working with dementia patients I calmed down a little. I think I just had this feeling that I was going to be assigned one and that worked for me since my grandmother had dementia. I am used to interacting with someone with dementia and felt very patient and understanding with my patient. I really enjoyed my day with her and she was very sweet. However, I did have trouble getting enough information to write my paper. I think it'll be a little harder with less information. But with one clinical under my belt, I think I will be a lot less nervous for the next one.
Now on to studying for the midterm. Hopefully I will do very well on it. That would be such a confidence booster.

Vital Signs

So I got to say I was a little worried about doing vital signs. In my Anatomy 2 lab we took blood pressure and I used a stethoscope there and had such a hard time hearing it while everyone else did fine. But today, with my stethoscope, I didn't have much of a problem and got pretty excited to finally be able to do it. I think I'm going to go buy a blood pressure cuff tomorrow so that I can practice some more. The more practice I have at all the vital signs, hopefully the less nervous I'll be come the first clinical. I can already see myself shaking too much to get a good pulse reading! Oh, I did have one problem during lab today, respirations. I keep forgetting to do them while I'm taking the pulse! I think that will be the hardest thing for me.