Becoming a Real Nurse

For the past 3 weeks I have been going to nursing clinical! The very first week I was assigned to the Urgencia Pediatria, or Pediatric Emergency area of the hospital. It was SO boring!! There were no patients... well four kids came in to the urgencia, but we just took their temperature and sent them to the doctor... that was it. I basically sat on coffee break for 5 hours. For the last hour though I got to move to the adult emergency and watch a couple of people get an electrocardiogram. As bored as I was, it was interesting to still see how the hospital works and how it is different than American health care. For example, I did not wash my hands a single time while at the hospital. In class we learn to wash our hands ALL THE TIME!!! In the Spanish hospital they rarely wash their hands, just switch gloves between patients. They also do not wear gloves for a lot of things we would wear gloves for. 

The following week I got to go to Residencia. Residencias are long term facilities for older people, basically a nursing home. At the Residencia I passed out hundreds of medications at breakfast time. I was really amazed at the amount of drugs one person would take. It's interesting though being in pharmacology this semester and understanding what the drugs do for a person. The nurse I followed would mention some of the drugs and I actually knew what they were! After breakfast we went up to the floor of the nurse and started changing pressure wounds. I've never changed a wound, but my nurse just told me to start doing it on the first patient! I had no idea what to do, but the nurse was able to talk me through it, so by the second or third patient I was pretty comfortable with it! Then the doctor came and let me watch him insert an IV on a patient. Then I watched him do a sterile cleaning of a stage 4 pressure ulcer. WARNING, graphic sentence coming up! The pressure ulcer was so deep the doctor could fit his entire fist into it!! You could literally see organs and muscle. The doctor just stuck his hand in and dug around cleaning it out. I almost passed out seeing him dig into teh wound like that... but I didn't. It was neat seeing the sterile procedure after practicing it in labs. He had to put on sterile gloves and had us open sterile packaging of gauze for him to grab. Then I prepared a few tube feeding, pulled out an iv, got some coffee and croissants and left! I really enjoyed the long term facility

This week was my favorite so far! I went back to the Urgencia Adulto, adult emergency, and followed a nurse. People will literally come in to the emergency room for nothing. There were several people that just felt a little dizzy and they were coming to the ER. It is free for them so they come for anything! My nurse was very willing to let me do things which was nice. She told me to watch first and then next time do! So I was able to put in an IV!! I didn't do it perfectly, but I hit the vein easily, I just didn't stop the flow of blood well so it gushed all over my hand... but besides that it was pretty good! I witnessed my nurse do so much more than I had previously. I also got to prepare a few iv lines with medication and witness a catheter. I would have been able to do the catheter... but I kind of chickened out, I kind of just wanted to see it done on a real person instead of a mannequin before doing it myself. Next time though! I'm really glad this week at the hospital was better than my first because it makes me excited to back one more time! I still have not given a shot, so I'm looking forward to that! I finally feel like a real nurse!!