Ending Summer Term.

I have officially finished my summer nursing class! Yahoo!

This summer was my first Med/Surg class. I really loved it. I felt like a learned a lot and I finally felt like I was learning how to be a nurse and not just a nursing assistant. I passed a lot of medication, worked with trach tubes, helped with wound care, and gave quite a few injections.
My instructor pushed me with everything during clinicals. She would never answer my questions (which was very frustrating at first...) but told me to go find the answer for myself. She really wanted me to discover things for myself. I really finished this class with a lot more knowledge than I came in with.

I was nervous about this class. This class was no longer about the basics of nursing.. but added onto the knowledge I already had from working in the healthcare field. Thankfully, this instructor recorded her lectures so we could listen at home. I listened to each lecture twice before each test.

Despite being nervous about this class, I came out with an A! I am beginning to surprise myself. I have never been much of a studier (although I am learning to do so along my journey). I am lucky enough to have a husband who keeps me motivated to finish my homework. (Mostly because I feel lazy when I see him studying while I am watching food channel... haha!) So far, I am really loving my nursing classes and I feel like I have made the right career choice... even though I haven't completely broken my procrastination habits. I know that these classes will continue to challenge me and I am ready for whatever may come next.

Up Next is my Mother Baby class... now that should be interesting.

Thinking about the future...

 

Lately I have been watching a lot of "Life in the ER" and "Inside Combat Rescue." Watching these shows really makes me so excited to graduate and start my life as a Nurse.

I know that I am still a newbie to the nursing world, but I have always had this draw towards ER/Trauma nursing. I don't know what it is about it, I just feel like it is something I want to be involved in. 
Doing clinicals on the Med/Surg floor was amazing, don't get me wrong--but the nurses were assigned 6-7 patients, and spent a limited amount of time with each of them. The call bells were going off like crazy and the nurses all seemed like they didn't really get to know their patients (at least from what I saw...) If the patient's status starts to go downhill--they send them off the unit to the nurses who are trained to handle more critical situations. Last week when the nurse I was with called a Rapid Response Team, you can bet that I was in that room watching everything they were doing. I was completely enjoying the chaos and learning from what others were doing.

Now, I know that working in that environment has its advantages--you learn time management, multi-tasking, how to really perfect your assessment, and learn collaboration with the whole team. There is nothing wrong with this at all--I just find myself addicted to those intense adrenaline rush moments. I find myself searching the unit for more complex and critical patients--I feel like I can learn a lot from them. 

I have been trying to plan out my course schedule for the Fall Semester to see if I can fit in time to take Emergency Medical Tech Basic courses. I think that this would be a great opportunity to step my foot into the first responder/emergency world. I don't know if I will have time this fall to complete these (although I would really love to). I am finishing up courses to start my bachelors degree. That being said, I am going to keep looking for chances to continue my education in critical care without overloading myself. Maybe I will get lucky enough to follow and ICU nurse for my preceptor ship next summer.

I guess watching ER shows in TV will have to support my obsession with the trauma field until school starts up again in the Fall. I have high hopes of where I will be going in the future. I can't wait for the day that I can tell everyone that I work in the ER....or better yet, that I will be a flight nurse. I guess I should start studying harder than I have been... (;