Passed the required Dosage Calculations test...not only did I pass. I aced it. Very good feeling to have that behind me for this semester.
Today was our orientation day at the local teaching hospital. LONG DAY. Up at 0430 to catch the 0620 bus from satellite parking. Then sat around lobby for about 30 minutes before our instructor showed up at 0700. Guess I could afford to take a later bus...but the then the buses are fuller and that holds a risk too. We ate breakfast together during pre-conference and discussion of what the day would hold. Went over a LOAD of hospital specific paperwork (terribly overwelming!) and then headed over to the ID office to get official hospital IDs...which ratchets up the reality notch a little tighter. Then headed to the unit where my clinical instructor normally works. Our instructor reserved a day room for us to use and brought in a hospital bed for a mini-skills lab (turning, positioning and transferring patients + vitals). And just as we were leave that unit, the fire alarm goes off. Thankfully not as obnoxious and painful as the ones in my elementary school. BUT, it.went.off.for.thirty.minutes! Mercy. Apparently this happens "all the time" b/c of the construction going on around the hospital (or steam from a shower). So that was somewhat exciting and then quickly pretty awful.I felt bad for the patients. If you are in the hospital you already feel like crap...why not taunt you with an alarm that would make any normal person a bit agitated? But we got to see their procedures in action--so that was good. Did see a couple firemen in their mega gear looking for the cause of the alarm. I think they narrowed problem down to our floor. I never thought about it, but those guys probably have to listen to their fair share of alarms.
Never heard what the culprit was as we went ahead and left the unit to head down to the until where we'll spend the next eight weeks. The fire alarm was unexpected and stole our time, so we didn't get to do the "hunt and find" exercise on the unit (where's this, where's that...), but we did get an instructor led tour of the unit so we won't be completely lost next week when we show up and have to find stuff!
Then we headed off for training on the hospital's electronic medical record/charting program. That about did me in...at one point I got so restless, fidgety that I could not focus and spent like 10 minutes reading the same page over and over and over. ugh. I was the LAST person to finish. I'm guessing a lot of people just ran through it and didn't fully comprehend everything. I really spent a long time looking at some of the documents that we printed out (that we will be using a lot). Hopefully I will be ready when times comes for me to actually DO what we were learning.
Now my brain is FRIED. But I've got to plug away for a few more hours this evening and try to get through our reading on electrolytes and fluids---probably one of the tougher concepts we have in in our fundamentals class.
For anyone who might stumble upon this post in the future and is applying to my nursing school...definitely take the Health Assessment class in the summer (along with Dosage Calculations) so that you are not taking Health Assessment (226) at the same time as Fundamentals (108). I'm so glad that's out of the way and I have those experience going into 108. Also very glad I'm not working! It's challenging WITHOUT a job and without dependents/family counting on me. I feel fortunate.
Well, I need to hang this up and hit the books. cheers.
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