Hey Everyone,
So it’s Saturday and I LOVE Saturdays (especially when I don’t have anything to do). Today I have been playing catch up on assignments that are going to be due and of course studying for my HESI exam which is March 27, 2009….so the count down is on. I have only been in school for two weeks and I swear it feels like I have been in there for months…..I guess because I have been very busy.
Last Saturday and Sunday I done clinical hours at the hospital and then Tuesday I also done some more clinical hours. So far I have done around 36 clinical hours but there are extra hours added on top of that which includes HESI study hours, meeting hours…etc. Which I think add up to about 56 hours and I have to complete 240 hours.
Clinicals have been going good. I hope to get more experience with IVs, documentation, admissions, and discharges. I think my weakest area in nursing is the documentation part. My preceptor hasn’t let me document yet so hopefully in the next upcoming days I will get too because I REALLY need to practice. There is so much to learn about it. I get really confused on what all needs to be done with it…I will be the new graduate Registered Nurse RN who leaves stuff blank lol which is a big NO NO. The hospital I am doing clinicals at always have these things called “tracers” where the come around and dissect charts to make sure everything is filled out and correct…so I want to be on top of stuff.
As you already know I’m on a cardiac-ICU step-down, and I have heard/seen some cool stuff on my assessments. I have finally heard crackles, rhonchi, and wheezes on patients…..which I didn’t really hear on my med. surgical patients during past clinicals on the regular floors…I guess because their status wasn’t as serious as the patients I have now??!! Out of those three types of breath sounds wheezes was by far the coolest sounding and it does sound just like a musical note. Rhonchi was pretty cool too! We had the patient cough deeply and after the pt coughed it disappeared. On this floor I have finally seen 3+ edema….which was very cool. It is like touching gel.
Tuesday I had one patient who could not keep their blood pressure down and it was around 250/118…yeah pretty high huh?! The crazy thing was that the patient had never been treated for high blood pressure before admission to the hosptial and we concluded that the pt blood pressure was probably running high the whole time before admission to the hospital. The pt diagnosis was a CVA attack (stroke) so the high blood pressure probably played a factor for the stroke. We gave the pt Labetol IV to get it down but it didn’t work it only dropped it to 173/94. I don’t know how the situation played out because it was almost 7pm and we were doing a shift change. I suppose the interesting part about this was that I have never seen a blood pressure that high. By the way, the patient claimed that they felt fine. I figured they would have a headache or something lol!
I don’t have clinicals again until this upcoming Tuesday which will be 7am-7pm…Wednesday I have class all day, Friday clinicals 7am-7pm, Saturday I’m taking my University’s exit exam (not the HESI), and then Sunday I have clincials 7am-7pm. Until then I’m going to be studying and doing assignments. I’ve heard that here in the South we are suppose to get some snowstorm Tuesday & Wednesday but it is still up in the air…so I might not have clinicals or class. I rather have clinicals than class hehe!
I found this cool graduation count down count on the web so I can keep track of when I graduation. ONLY 98 more days….I can so swing that!! May 9, 2009 can’t get here any sooner!!
Until next time,
Sarah 
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Posted under Clinicals, Daily Ramblings, Nursing School
This post was written by RN on January 31, 2009
