Breathe, Dammit, Breathe!
We had skills lab again in class last night. It had been a couple weeks, and it felt kind of bracing to get back to the nitty-gritty (and scary) stuff after a bunch of med-surg and pharmacology lectures (where even if I don't already know the specific material, and I often do, it's still all academicky and therefore playing to my strengths).
This time it was respiratory-related stuff: trach care, chest tubes, suctioning. We started out nice and easy, with a little video on asthma, and then our instructor passed around a bunch of asthma thingies (inhalers, spacers, peak flow meters). Now, not too long ago, I spent a couple of years in an asthma job, which included patient education, so I'm all over the asthma stuff. I even have a few little practical nuggets to offer when it comes to asthma (something that is true in almost no other clinical area). So I got to start the session feeling all confident and competent, which was nice, because once we hit the other stuff, I was really out of my depth.
Everyone else in the class has done acute care in the past and so at least has memories of dealing with this stuff. So when we're talking about how you ambu somebody before you suction, everybody else can picture it, based on their own experience. I myself can picture it too, but it's only because I watched a lot of ER for a few seasons. (By the way, "ambu-ing" is the same thing as "bagging," which is to say, using those squishy blue football-shaped things (called... ambu bags!) to push air/oxygen into someone's lungs. You want to do it before you suction somebody's airway because while you're suctioning, they're not going to be getting much in the way of oxygen. Since oxygen is something a person does get to missing, it's nice to kind of stock up beforehand.) It's actually kind of scary how much of my knowledge of acute care comes from fictional television programs--mostly ER, but also Gray's Anatomy and even Scrubs. I mean, yikes. Of course, if there were a nice, funny, engaging, compelling, well-researched dramatic series called Med-Surg Nurse, I'd really be set.
When we left class, having just practiced suctioning on one of the tan plastic simulator mannequins (the poor dear had a tracheotomy in addition to the nasty assorted wounds of all major types he had all over his body), I felt all fired up to go suction an airway. Let me at it, I can do it! Of course, that feeling is already starting to fade, and by the time I actually get to a clinical setting, it's going to be gone completely.
My clinical probably won't be starting until the week after next, which could be my fault (because I've been a little bit laggardly about getting my health forms filled out), but which is, to my relief, also the fault of the program's administration, and even if I had all my paperwork in months ago, I still wouldn't have set foot on my unit yet. The grumblings among my classmates about the poor coordination of the administrative aspects of the program are getting louder. One of our classmates actually has her first clinical time set--she starts next Monday--but most of us have only just received the name and phone number of our preceptor.
Our main med-surg instructor, Deb, is being pretty circumspect and not openly rolling her eyes or anything, but last class she did rather delicately say that hmm, well, usually by this time in the program, we would have started clinical and would be able to talk about our experiences together... And after last night's session, the somewhat more earthy Margaret, our skills lab instructor, was a bit more open about her exasperation. The problem, I think, is pretty much entirely Bea, the doctoral-level nurse who's the administrative head of the program. I'm not sure what's up with her. One thing is that apparently her secretary left recently, and Bea herself didn't even know which file drawers to look in for such things as the copies of our nursing licenses or our proof of malpractice insurance. It seems go a bit deeper than that, though, like maybe Bea is having a little personal/professional breakdown of some kind. (Maybe the departure of the secretary was a symptom rather than a cause?) We see her occasionally, briefly, and she's always cordial enough but also tends to look kind of distracted, and somewhere in her eyes maybe even a little hunted.
My emotional reaction to the delays is nearly evenly split between two opposing sentiments: a raging impatience to get on with it, already; and a feeling of blessed temporary reprieve from coming tortures. I really don't enjoy being bad at things. No, see, I really don't. But then, when I get too comfortable in a job, I get antsy and itchy and bored.
At least now it's all been set in motion, and all it takes is momentum and waiting, and I'll end up in a new place. I don't have to decide anything more right now. I don't really have to be brave at this point, I just have to endure being scared, and the rest will take care of itself. I'll let you know how it goes.
This time it was respiratory-related stuff: trach care, chest tubes, suctioning. We started out nice and easy, with a little video on asthma, and then our instructor passed around a bunch of asthma thingies (inhalers, spacers, peak flow meters). Now, not too long ago, I spent a couple of years in an asthma job, which included patient education, so I'm all over the asthma stuff. I even have a few little practical nuggets to offer when it comes to asthma (something that is true in almost no other clinical area). So I got to start the session feeling all confident and competent, which was nice, because once we hit the other stuff, I was really out of my depth.
Everyone else in the class has done acute care in the past and so at least has memories of dealing with this stuff. So when we're talking about how you ambu somebody before you suction, everybody else can picture it, based on their own experience. I myself can picture it too, but it's only because I watched a lot of ER for a few seasons. (By the way, "ambu-ing" is the same thing as "bagging," which is to say, using those squishy blue football-shaped things (called... ambu bags!) to push air/oxygen into someone's lungs. You want to do it before you suction somebody's airway because while you're suctioning, they're not going to be getting much in the way of oxygen. Since oxygen is something a person does get to missing, it's nice to kind of stock up beforehand.) It's actually kind of scary how much of my knowledge of acute care comes from fictional television programs--mostly ER, but also Gray's Anatomy and even Scrubs. I mean, yikes. Of course, if there were a nice, funny, engaging, compelling, well-researched dramatic series called Med-Surg Nurse, I'd really be set.
When we left class, having just practiced suctioning on one of the tan plastic simulator mannequins (the poor dear had a tracheotomy in addition to the nasty assorted wounds of all major types he had all over his body), I felt all fired up to go suction an airway. Let me at it, I can do it! Of course, that feeling is already starting to fade, and by the time I actually get to a clinical setting, it's going to be gone completely.
My clinical probably won't be starting until the week after next, which could be my fault (because I've been a little bit laggardly about getting my health forms filled out), but which is, to my relief, also the fault of the program's administration, and even if I had all my paperwork in months ago, I still wouldn't have set foot on my unit yet. The grumblings among my classmates about the poor coordination of the administrative aspects of the program are getting louder. One of our classmates actually has her first clinical time set--she starts next Monday--but most of us have only just received the name and phone number of our preceptor.
Our main med-surg instructor, Deb, is being pretty circumspect and not openly rolling her eyes or anything, but last class she did rather delicately say that hmm, well, usually by this time in the program, we would have started clinical and would be able to talk about our experiences together... And after last night's session, the somewhat more earthy Margaret, our skills lab instructor, was a bit more open about her exasperation. The problem, I think, is pretty much entirely Bea, the doctoral-level nurse who's the administrative head of the program. I'm not sure what's up with her. One thing is that apparently her secretary left recently, and Bea herself didn't even know which file drawers to look in for such things as the copies of our nursing licenses or our proof of malpractice insurance. It seems go a bit deeper than that, though, like maybe Bea is having a little personal/professional breakdown of some kind. (Maybe the departure of the secretary was a symptom rather than a cause?) We see her occasionally, briefly, and she's always cordial enough but also tends to look kind of distracted, and somewhere in her eyes maybe even a little hunted.
My emotional reaction to the delays is nearly evenly split between two opposing sentiments: a raging impatience to get on with it, already; and a feeling of blessed temporary reprieve from coming tortures. I really don't enjoy being bad at things. No, see, I really don't. But then, when I get too comfortable in a job, I get antsy and itchy and bored.
At least now it's all been set in motion, and all it takes is momentum and waiting, and I'll end up in a new place. I don't have to decide anything more right now. I don't really have to be brave at this point, I just have to endure being scared, and the rest will take care of itself. I'll let you know how it goes.
posted by Rosie Bonner at 12:37 PM
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