Week 2: Its Only Week 2!?!?

I say that because there has only been 7 official school days and it seems much longer.  Week 2 was also a special week since we went to senior centers to begin learning how to effectively communicate with people.

Before I get into recapping, let me try to give you an idea of what is Nursing Process I.  It's basically an all-in-one course that teaches us basic nursing skills.  It includes lecture (where we learn theory), lab (where we practice nursing skills), and clinical (where we put nursing skills into practice).  Being a 10 unit nursing class, the class is team-taught.  There are 3 full-time instructors who I consider the show-runners for the class.  These 3 including 3 additional part-time instructors also take students to the hospital on clinical days.  There have been other part-time instructors who have given lectures or demonstrated nursing skills in lab.  The immediate benefit is the amount of attention each the instructors can give to each student during lab and clinical time.  I don't have to listen to same person lecture day in and day out.  It basically keeps everything vibrant and exciting.  I've personally love the way the class is set up.

September 6, 2010 - Beach Day!

There was no school (awesome!) on Labor Day, so I went to Huntington Beach (even better!).............to practice checking my classmates vital signs?!?!? (not cool!).  Well, actually I had a great time.  Actually got to apply my knowledge from my days at UCLA and PCH (never thought that would be useful again, haha!).  Tomorrow is skills assessment so about 10 of us participating in a little BP study session.

Why bother practicing blood pressures when I already know how to do it?  The way I see it, it was a chance to bond with my peers.  I'm gonna be around these people for another 63 weeks and its time we start getting to know each other.  I like helping people too, and I want to use my prior training for everyone’s benefit.

Brings me back to my days in PCH (Pilipinos for Community Health), but when you mostly screen old pilipinos males at hypertension sites, you would never see these types of number.

September 7, 2010 - Blood Pressure Skills Assessment

Tuesday morning was blood pressure assessment day.  Four instructors were assessing us in groups of two.  Unfortunately I was assigned to the LAST assessment time at 1145 (lab started at 0955).  The assessments were running behind schedule and by the time I got in to get assessed, the rest of the class was at lunch.  I had a lot of practice in two hours, and when I got bored of that and decided to take some pictures.

All vital signs were normal, thankfully!

Although you can't tell, 60 people fit comfortably inside the lab.

Another view of the lab.  It's a really great space to work on nursing skills.

Lecture:  Let's Play with Doh.

I actually read beforehand this time for lecture and I found myself actually staying awake.  I guess when you sit in the third row, you kinda have to stay awake.  But what made this lecture fun was playing with play-doh (well, a generic version of dough) to help demonstrate pitting adema (basically swelling or inflammation of body tissues).

Instructor:  "I can't stand medical shows.  I can stand House because he is extremely observant, which nurses have to be."

It wasn't play-doh, but some generic dough.

Increasing sign of pitting adema going from left to right.

September 8, 2010:  Senior Center “Clinical”:  Day I

Today was "Clinical" day (not really a clinical because the senior center is not a hospital).  Part of a continuing process of orienting the nursing students to the hospitals, the instructors sent us out to Senior Centers to begin learning to interact with clients.  Basically, we were learning how to talk like nurses.  I was sent out to Roger’s Senior Center in Huntington Beach.  It is literally 2 blocks away from the beach.  Today was also the first day we actually got to work with our clinical instructor.  She is definitely a nice person, but definitely doesn't take any crap.  She means business.

So what did I do the whole day?  Well, I decided to check out the wii bowling team practice.  They're all really good, and they all could be me at a game of wii bowling.  It was beginning to get crowded with nursing students, so I left to participate in a couple of the aerobics classes.  It wasn't anything I couldn't handle, but it definitely got me sweating a little bit.

Older Adults arriving for their aerobics class.  They loved having us young people join them in their activities.

September 9, 2010:  Head to Toe Physical Assessments

Next week the instructors begin assessing this important skill.  A group of about 10 of us went to the outdoor amphitheater at GWC to practice doing this on a patient.  Unfortunately for me, I was the first patient.  Compared to taking vital signs and blood pressure, this skill is much harder to get down because of all the steps.  Unfortunately, I know this is something nurses do we their patients at the beginning of each shift.

It was quite comfy lying there.  I was close to falling asleep, but my partner got started on the physical assessment.

September 10, 2010:  Senior Center “Clinical”: Day II

This was a much quieter day at the senior center.  The wii bowling team was not practicing and no aerobics classes were going.  In general there were less people, but the day was probably the most interesting.  To protect client privacy, all I can say that there was an emergency in which the paramedics had to attend to a client and take them to the hospital.  Got a chance to observe what was going on.  Thankfully, RN’s and nursing students were around until the paramedics arrived.

We went to the senior center in our nursing uniforms.  Our expensive, heather blue and white, "Made in USA" uniforms.

I'm still working the formatting and design of each weekly blog entry, but I think I'm getting closer to what I want it to be.  I have been writing this blog entry since the beginning of the week, recapping each day after it happens.  But I'm pretty sure I'm only going to post once a week (this ain't no 365 project, although it does kinda have that feel).  Sorry for any grammatical mistakes, I'm not really proofreading.  

So 2 weeks down and 2 weeks closer to becoming an RN!