The end

Today marks the end of my last clinical rotation of undergrad nursing school, which was in the Special Care Unit/ICU. 5 weeks of driving to and from a hospital 40 minutes away all over. Not to mention, psych and peds ICU were thrown in there at different hospitals (each was 1 week respectively--barely enough to learn much from). I'm so glad it's over; I mentioned to my friend as I was leaving the hospital that I will not miss the place or the drive out there. I'm thankful I had a friend to carpool with to make the drive a little more bearable. I earned an A and the professor offered to write me a letter of recommendation. She pulled me aside yesterday for my evaluation and asked if I had a job lined up and if I needed a letter. She took the words right out of my mouth because I was meaning to ask her yesterday so she could give me a letter before it was all over. That was pretty sweet!

I was in the ER today and it was pretty ho-hum, which was great for the staff, though as a student I would have loved to see craziness and trauma.

The rest of the days this week I was in ICU and had a pretty interesting experience

• Airlifts and transfers from out of state hospitals are always fun and interesting or related to a medical professional in transferred-to hospital.

• Walking out of a room and seeing the exact person you need when your patient's ETT (Endotrach tube) comes out is definitely a rarity and my luck.
• Giving a patient meds through an NGT and stepping back to realize that the patient had exsanguinated all over your white nursing shoes and some of the bottom of your all-white nursing uniform is a great feeling (*sarcasm) The IV blunt came out of the pt's IV port (the hospital has the strangest IV port system...very very inefficient though cheap, which is why the hospital likes it)...I've seen numerous problems with the IV system throughout the 5 weeks there.
• Seeing a patient who is well into her elder years and then her daughter and realizing that the 110 y.o. or whatever patient looks so much better than the daughter who can barely walk and needs a nursing assistant to take her around in a wheel chair...go figure.
  
• One of the primary nurses I was paired with was just 25 and had done 5 years in med surg and just transferred to the ICU...she started when she was 21...which will be my story soon. She was a nursing assistant before and had always worked in hospitals prior to becoming an LPN and then an RN. She's in school again for her masters. Very motivating.

I'm lookin forward to tomorrow's nursing seminar to find out who my preceptor is for my mandatory 185 hours. I chose ICU and was placed in a medical center close to me (THANKFULLY!) I mean, I guess it's not as bad as living an hour away from your preceptorship site/hospital and having to do the 12 hours...that really sucks! :(

So hopefully I have a good schedule which will go along well with my classes on Mon/Fri. We'll see...