Some nursey notes...

Being a nurse is a strange thing so far. On one hand, your hands are tied in so many ways. You have to have an order for everything, even compression stockings. If a patient takes a drug at home they take it, but in the hospital they can’t if it is on their medication administration record. On the other hand, you are free to make clinical judgments and deviate from the plan as needed. They don’t give you a lot of rope, but it is enough to make you a rock star or hang yourself.

One of the very things I have loved so far is the patients! It is true that I will not like all my patients and not all of the patients are going to love me; however, this has not been the case so far. I love that I don’t know their religion, personal politics, or even their views on ham sandwiches. We get to be just a couple of human beings working for the same goal for a few short hours of their lives. They most likely won’t even remember me in a few months from now. So far, most of them just love to talk about their families and pets. I have had some great patients. I have also had some demanding patients, but when you see what they are going through you tend to have some compassion about it. I guess that is easy to do when you only get two patients a day though!

There have been some strange transitions for me with this job. I spent more time at Children’s hospital than anywhere else in my last year of nursing school. They monitor those kids so much that I am not used to just getting one set of vitals at the beginning of the shift. I also was never allowed to give narcotics, so med passes were much regimented and the scheduled meds were scheduled so that you weren’t passing meds back to back hours. That isn’t always the case at TG, but I do find that there are ways to help that as well. I also don’t have parents to work with…for the most part and certainly not in the same way. The patients tend to be a little bigger too…just saying.

Today I go to work and I don’t know who will be my preceptor. I don’t know if they will let me even take patients, although I would think since I have already been taking patients that this would not be an issue. I do hope that the next time I work with my regular preceptors that I will get three patients. I feel ready for it.