Update and Clinical Journal Entry 1

Hello everyone!  I am super busy and I have been feeling...off...lately. I'm sure you understand that feeling! haha. However I have been a busy bee and I'm trying desperately to keep up with school work. I am hoping to get ahead or on top of things this week and I am feeling confident in my ability to do that. I have been evaluating my ability to do things in a timely manner and why I am not getting things done very well at all.  I came to the conclusion that i need to do more than just a to-do list that extends to four days and a daily schedule. Nope, i need to do a weekly schedule with a to-do list for the entire week and next week. So, reaching this conclusion I am going to kidnap my mother tomorrow and we're going to draw up my schedule (she's a wonderful secretary and manages to always find the right format for me!)  I'm very excited about this step and I hope that it will move me in the right direction. I have an FO (that needs buttons) that I will post about very soon and I still have tons of other posts...I'm soooo behind. However the end of the month is coming up and that is one post I will not miss (my monthly resolution evaluation).

Until I can get you those posts I thought I would share with you something I did for class. You may or may not know that I am going to nursing school to become a Register Nurse. Well I am in Upper Division: Level 2 out of 5 and am going to be having clinical all semester! (Yes, 15 weeks! Wow!) For this semester they changed the format of our weekly packet. At the end of it we have a "Clinical Journal."  Now this is my thoughts of the clinical day and my performance and how I am feeling. Just like a journal!  I figured I would post it on here because it is definitely something from my heart and definitely something I shouldn't forget. I should be able to post all of these because no patient information will likely be in it. If there is then I will edit it for the blog, or will choose not to post it. 

I hope you enjoy it and I miss you very much. I have been loving looking at the wonderful blogs that have been posted recently so don't stop please! They help so much!  Any thoughts or comments or feelings or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

            I was very encouraged for this first clinical experience. Many things are already making this a more positive clinical rotation than last. First, I am going to have so many different kinds of patients which will allow me to learn about many different diseases and disease processes. It will also help me with my therapeutic communication skills because I will be able to communicate with many different persons who are in the hospital for various different reasons.  I am also excited about this rotation because this is more of an environment that I can see myself working in than the last one. I was stricken by how different the nurses and staffs attitudes were compared to the other facility. The nurses at this hospital seemed so positive and genuinely happy to see the students here. I really look forward to seeing how they care for patients.  I am also very excited about this level’s clinical because I will be shadowing a particular RN this time. At the last facility I felt that I had only really learned medication administration and CNA responsibilities.  I am very excited for the new learning opportunities this will present to me.  I am however very nervous about my performance.  I feel extremely unprepared.  I think that this is mainly due to my inexperience in the nursing/care giving/hospital setting and due to the fact that I have not truly followed a nurse yet.  I feel that this also is much faster paced and I am scared of making a mistake or not being a source of comfort for the patient’s.  However, I do have confidence that my instructor will be there for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was getting to like her more and more the more she told us about herself and the more she talked about the facility and her roles and our roles. I felt that that conversation really helped me calm my nerves a bit. I just need to remind myself that I will not be a perfect nurse in the beginning of level 2. I am there to learn, and I am ready and willing to learn and I care about doing my best, and that yes, that is enough.

Love,
LeeAnn