19 Firsts...

The four week maternal-child nursing clinical is nearly over (today is the last day).


As I did at the end of my Med-Surg I clinical, here is a list of firsts/things I've learned:


1. Diapers have numbers on them. The number needs to be on the front. Why they never told us this important fact in lab or in class I will never know.
2. Changed a diaper.
3. How to get a spec grav (specific gravity) for a child in diapers.
4. Neuro exam.
5. Fetal Heart Rates...accels vs decels. I think I finally understand :)
6. pushing!
7. Witnessed first C-section!
8. First newborn assessment....wow babies breathe fast!
9. Gave baby's first shot...first eye drops...
10. Baby's foot prints!
11. vaginal delivery...oh boy.
12. baby's not breathing....start resuscitation.
13. Witnessed first epidural.
14. Inserted first foley.
15. Removed first foley.
16. Yet another day in the NICU...not yet sure how I'm feeling about it....
17. Bottle fed a baby!
18. Bathed a baby!
19. Taught dad how to feed a baby. huh?! ME?! I had just fed a baby for my first time 4 hours earlier....


A little background: my maternity lecture class was the last class of the day on Tuesdays. Tuesday usually began at 9am or 10 am with labs. Then we had a 2 1/2 hour med surg class....an hour break, usually taken up with another scheduled lab, followed by a long pharm class....followed by a 35 minute break and then 3 hours of maternity (class started at 5pm). (This was after a long monday.)

In other words, by the time we got to maternity we were brain drained and exhausted. Patience was low, and the teacher-an amazing very holistic oriented midwife with a PhD-didn't have classroom experience. She was great in small, conversation type groups. In class, we had the giggles. I have no idea how I ended up with the grades I did and was extremely worried that I wouldn't know what to do in clinical. For better or worse, we had a clinical instructor who really held our hand-something I greatly appreciated as babies scared me (they still do, by not nearly as much...).

Now I have to decide what sect of nursing I want to go into. More on that later :)