Second Semester - Week One

This week was our first week of school, and even though we started on Tuesday instead of Monday I feel like it counted for a whole week. This semester I'm taking both Nursing 102 and microbiology, so it's going to be a bit busier than last semester.

The first day of school was a clinical day, but we weren't in the hospital yet. We were on campus and had 6 hours of lecture/administrative work, as well as a nursing critical-thinking exam. That was a bit confusing, I think, because we were told ahead of time that we'd have this exam but not why, or if it counted towards our grade, or what it was all about. It turned out it was a metric for the school, not for our grades, so after that I didn't really worry about it. Which served me well, since I got a 920/1000. I have no idea what a good score is but that sounds high so I'll take it.

I have a different instructor for my nursing class this semester, so I am also getting to know her style as well as a whole new set of classmates - only one of my classmates from the first semester is in my class, and he won't be in my clinical group. As always it's interesting to get to know a whole new group of personalities and see where we mesh and where we divide.

We had our first skill lab, too, and started learning to give injections! They are not starting us slowly, that's for sure. We managed to cover intramuscular and intradermal injections but didn't have time to cover subcutaneous, so we will cover that next week. We had real needles and dummy body parts on which to practice. It was quite exciting. Here's a picture from skill lab:



My microbiology class is proving interesting already - we've already had a lab and been assigned our microscopes to use throughout the semester. Mine seems good, which is a relief, and I like that we'll keep the same one so we get to know the instrument. Everyone told me that this professor really teaches you to use a microscope properly, so I'm hoping that in this class I'll finally learn how to not get headaches when I look through one for more than half an hour. I really enjoy microscopy and the nerdier aspects of science, so getting my brain on board with that would be nice. Plus, microbiology really is interesting, as a topic.


On the whole, while I'm anxious about the amount of time I'll need to study this semester, and the workload, I'm still excited and ready to go.

Winter break - update on the end of first semester

I realize I haven't written in a while and one of my goals for the New Year is to do better, so I'm hoping to start off right! We had finals in early/mid-December (is it bragging to mention that I did get an A, and did well in my clinical evaluations?) and have been on break since, and I will say I have needed the time to recover and get ready for the next semester. We start the day after MLK day, so just over a week now. I am looking forward to it but besides Nursing 102 I'll also be taking microbiology, so that is definitely going to keep me busy.

We signed up for a new clinical rotation but I ended up at the same hospital, so I'll be back at the University of Chicago. I would like to have opportunities in other hospitals to get a wider variety of experience, but I also liked U of C so I think it'll be ok. The other difference is that this is a 6:30AM - 12:30PM slot, instead of 7AM - 1PM, so I'm going to have to wake up even earlier on Tuesdays! (The benefit to this? Minimal traffic on the way there. It's kind of fun to drive on the Chicago roads that early in the morning.) 

One of the most interesting things we did at the end of last semester was work with the Medi-man that's located in the school. The Medi-man looks like a mannequin, but is hooked up to a computer system and has quite complex internal workings. The Medi-man breathes, has a pulse and blood pressure, can pass bodily fluids, has pupils that contract and dilate, and even responds to things like pills you put in the mouth, oxygen, and the AED. They can run different scenarios on the patient so that students can practice responding in an emergency without, you know, having to worry about killing an actual person. Or waiting around for the right emergency to happen. While we were in there they had him crash and two of the students had to do CPR to revive him - and it worked! (Our professor told us she had the person who runs the lab set it so the Medi-man wouldn't "die" for the first-years, because it can be too emotionally upsetting.) 

Anyway as I'm sure you can imagine I found this utterly fascinating and asked if we could see the controls. There's actually a two-way mirror into the room so the person who runs the lab can watch from the control room, so we went back there and saw the computer and systems that run it. The software is pretty interesting - the whole system is set up so like in real life you can't just change one variable; if you change the patient's oxygen levels that affects other things, and the software figures it out for you. The lab manager said that when they first acquired the system they had to build their own scenarios for each simulation they wanted to do, but now there are also off-the-shelf ones you can buy from the company (I couldn't believe they didn't do that right away - it seemed like such a logical money-making opportunity). The Medi-man also has things like room gas sensors so it knows how to respond to the oxygen, and there are actually big tanks of oxygen and other gases in the back hooked up to the Medi-man so it can behave properly. We also saw the servers where all this is stored. (My IT security training kicked in and I started wondering why it wasn't locked up more than it is but I refrained from mentioning it.)

So that is a whole side of HIT that I never even thought of before I experienced it, but right away I realized what a valuable tool it was. I can't wait until we get to do more simulations in our second semester!

Just past midterms, first semester

Nursing school has proceeded apace. A couple weeks ago was midterm, today we have our third exam, and things just keep moving along. I can't believe it, but that means we're over 1/8 done.


Here are some notes from along the way:

- We've actually started doing vital signs and, as of this week, passing meds! This was my first week of officially doing both on our clinical site and I realized I was slightly intimidated when I put the vital signs I Actually Took Myself into my patient's computer chart. It somehow made things way more official than they had been up until that moment! I also gave my first medication, after of course I triple-checked it and so did my instructor. It was Coreg, an anti-hypertensive, and I am guessing I will probably never forget it.

- I have also been practicing taking blood pressure on practically everyone I know. Luckily all of my friends and family have been pretty patient with this. 

- I really can't imagine what the hospitals were like before the EMRs! I know, I know, everyone is going to call me a young whippersnapper but from a safety perspective, the level of error-checking is great. My instructor has told us about hospitals that have even more advanced systems than U of C, especially with regards to medication and preventing medication errors, and honestly they all seem like such good ideas that I wish all hospitals had them all. I especially like the one where you have to scan the person and the med before you give the med and it warns you if it's the wrong one. I truly wish all hospitals had that. Even the best doctor and nurse can make a human error, because no one is ever perfect, and having safeguards is never a bad thing.

- And oh! Our teacher held up a big magazine article about Dennis Quaid when we first started talking about meds. I got very excited and of course had to explain that he'd spoken at my former employer's annual conference. 

- Our instructors have all made a big deal about starting study groups, but I tried to attend one and have found that it just doesn't match my style. I like discussing philosophies and hypothetical examples with my classmates, but when it actually comes to learning the material, I work much better alone. At first I wondered if I was doing things wrong, but I remembered that I've always been this way, so I decided not to worry about it any further.

- We've had our first two exams, and while my stress levels have gone through the roof I managed to get As on both. We also had our midterm clinical evaluations, which included some good feedback and that I am doing well on the skills-level but also included my clinical instructor asking if I was sure I wanted to be a nurse and telling me I could only answer that by looking into my own heart! It turns out she and I have very different styles so she interpreted my learning-mode-behavior as hesitancy and uncertainty. But I think we got it straightened out. As I'm sure you can imagine it was a rather alarming few minutes, though.

Really it's amazing. I know I have so much left to learn, and I feel like I have learned very little when I think about actually taking care of patients, but when I look back to my first week of classes it seems like a lifetime ago in terms of how far I've come. There's just so much to learn and so much change happening so quickly!

Dispatches from Nursing School - Introduction

I am a first year nursing student at Truman City College in Chicago, IL. I started nursing school on August 23rd 2010. It's a two-year program, so by this time in 2012 I should be an RN - as long as everything goes according to plan.


I come to nursing via a long road. I received a BS in Computer Science from the Ohio State University in 2003, and have spent the last 7 years working tech support. My last job was at a not-for-profit that promotes better healthcare through IT, and I think working with the nurses there must have subconsciously influenced me when I started thinking about what new career I should select.


Why did I pick nursing as my new profession? There's no quick answer to that question. I knew I was unsatisfied with tech support as a career, and when I thought about why I realized that what makes me truly happy is to help and to feel like I'm making a difference in the world. I looked into a few other careers first (notably zoology, because I do love animals) but I also have a deep need for stability, and I have already done my moving around the country. Nursing is a profession that is needed everywhere, and I almost certainly won't have to move to find a job. Plus, from a pragmatic point of view, I want to make sure I can make enough money to keep my cat in the manner to which he's become accustomed. Nursing looked like a perfect fit. So I went to the nurses I worked with, and asked them what they thought. They were all incredibly encouraging and I still appreciate their support so much. I talked to my friends and family and, while they were initially surprised, everyone's been very supportive. 


I started taking my prerequisites in the fall of 2008. I had to take biology and re-take chemistry, and then came Anatomy and Physiology I and II. I still haven't taken microbiology, so I honestly thought I wouldn't be accepted into the program for fall of 2010; I was all set to take micro this fall and start the program in 2011. I was utterly shocked when I receive my acceptance letter - truthfully, I couldn't have been more surprised if someone had just walked into my house and punched me in the face. That was in April, and I've spent the last 4 months preparing. Immunizations and titers, background checks, drug tests, physicals, orientations, book-buying, uniform-acquiring, job-quitting - it's been a whirlwind of a summer. But I'm here now, and we've begun, and while I am still terrified I am also excited. And I feel good about it.