things learned

Things I have learned in nursing school this month:

How to write a nursing diagnosis, care plan and how to chart.

How to do dosage calculations.

How to do a sterile dressing change. Is it a bad sign that I felt a little nauseous while watching the videos on wound care? Those wounds can be pretty disgusting (and that's without knowing how they smell).

How to put in a Foley catheter. I've heard some pretty gross stories about actually doing this in real life. Again, gross. Also, if your instructor, who is supposed to be watching you and correcting you while you practice, is talking with another instructor about their cats (no joke), how the heck are you supposed to know if you're doing things the right way? I blame her if I stick a tube where it's not supposed to go.

How to give intramuscular injections. Hold the syringe like a dart at a 90-degree angle and go for it (making sure you're aiming for the right landmark, of course). If you hit bone just pull back and act normal/don't freak out. Yikes.

Practicing on dummies is NOT going to be the same as doing these things on real people.

When you ask the same question to different instructors, expect to get a different answer from each one of them. Helpful, very helpful.

I believe enemas and ostomies are coming up in the near future. Sounds like fun. Hope I don't barf while watching the videos!

You might be questioning my choice of nursing by my usage of the words gross, nauseous and barf in this post. I'm hoping these things will get better with experience. I can handle it, but it doesn't mean I'm not a little grossed out at times. We'll see what happens when it comes to putting things in peoples' open wounds, needles in their veins and tubes in their who-has (that's a medical term, didn't you know?).