Week 4: Anxiety on the Rise.

This was a pretty fun week in general.  We went to clinicals for the first time and a field trip to the Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) hearing in San Diego.  Yea there was lecture, lab, and exam #1, but I won't bore you with that stuff this week.

Meds, Meds, Meds!

Monday was more medication administration practice.  Medication Administration can be a b*tch, unless you play the role of patient who gets to lie in bed and take pictures as the student nurses research your medication. (FYI, if you wonder why you see the same people in my pictures, their in my clinical group and I know they don' t mine me taking their pictures)

Dirty Hands

Actually, I'll talk about the asepsis lecture a little bit.  I enjoyed it, because this instructor that lectured on asepsis lighten to mood a bit and got us laughing.  The mood was definitely down because we just took the first exam and I think everyone seemed a bit worn down.  Hygiene and cleanliness is neccessarily the most exciting topic to talk about.  However, the instructor did a one person skit that was hilarious.  But yea, watch this video on why you should wash your hands.  You honestly don't know where they have been.

Clinicals!!!!!

I do have to learn how to wake up early.  It's not easy for me, since I have a difficult time falling asleep before midnight.  6:03 is early.  Thank God, clinicals are only on Thursday and Friday, do not start till 0630 (this week we started at 0700) and I don't live more than 15 minutes from the hospital.

I appreciate the flavor, smell, and taste of coffee.  There is nothing like a little bit of morning coffee to wake you up.  Sure you have the afternoon fall, but at least it keeps you going in the morning.  This hospital has free coffee!  Thumbs up for free coffee.  It wasn't bad, and nothing quite beats free.

After seeing all the coffee cups on the table at orientation, I think everyone appreciated the free coffee.  I won't bore you with the details of the orientation, just know it lasted the whole morning.  We got a chance to visit to floor we will actually will be working on.  We did a scavenger hunt to find things that we might be using.  After the day was over, I walked out with most of my classmates, and we all basically said the same thing, "I think my anxiety just went up."  T-minus 4 days to patient care!

All Aboard the Magic School Bus!

I thought 0603 AM on Thursday was early, 0442 is still Thursday night to me (props to me for remembering to take a picture of my clock for my blog).  We had to get up really early and get to GWC by 0600 or else the bus leaving for San Diego would leave us behind.  Thankfully, it was a nice bus and not a yellow school bus (the magic school bus would have been amazing!)

We got to the hearing at 0800.  It was about an hour before it started and got basically front row seats.  Not bad considering it only took 2 hours with traffic. I was able to snap this picture while we were waiting for the hearing to start.

The hearing started and you can't believe some of the things these nurses did to get their license revoked.  While I was talking to my classmates before, I was hoping some sexual harassment case or something dealing with prostitution.  Unfortunately my hopes were not answered.  We listened to 4 cases.  The first one dealt with the nurse stealing drugs for self administration and giving the drug to try to heal his brother dying of HIV.  That case was such a sad story (he even broke down crying), but based on his testimony, I'm not sure I would reinstate that person license.

I was able to snap this picture above during a break in the proceedings.  I didn't realized that the hearing would have the board of registered nursing, an actual judge, a couple district attorneys and a stenographer.

Case #4 was also interesting.  The nurse was convicted of self-administering controlled substances.  She took these drugs because she could not deal with the daily stresses of her life and being a nurse.  She was asked a question from the board where she had to address the students in the room.  Definitely some genuine and heartfelt words she had to say (unfortunately, i can't remember what she said).

By 1200, we left San Diego and I was back home by 1500.  I was really tired and I ended up doing nothing the rest of the day.  What a way to cap off the fourth week of nursing school.