Monday, August 2, 2010

Last Week

Today started my last week of my nursing internship this summer. Where on earth did the last 12 weeks go?? I can't believe I have 2 days left of work. I have gotten to participate in some amazing learning experiences and feel like I have grown a lot as a future nurse.

I worked in areas of the hospital I never even thought I would enjoy and found that I really could work in those areas and probably will in order to further my career as a nurse-- CRNA anyone??!

I met some great girls who are going to make fabulous nurses one day. We should all feel lucky we will have people like them taking care of us one day!!

I feel much more comfortable with very sick patients. I know I can handle anything--including post-mortem care. It will happen to most nurses at some point in their career and it is a very honorable job to do for your patient.

I've seen gunshot wounds, chainsaw wounds, intubations, extubations, chest tube insertions and exertions, and abscesses caused by staph infections. I've seen patients posturing, brain death, and miraculous recoveries.

I've given shots, primed tubing, extubated patients, put in multiple male and female catheters, taken blood from good and bad veins, post-mortem care, dressed wounds, and dressed art lines. I've even done sternal rub on a patient who was bradying down (very low heart rate) with a low blood pressure and got him to come back!

Like I said, I've experienced a lot and feel so blessed to have had this experience. And I can't wait to celebrate with all the externs on Friday night! Happy Monday everyone:)

2 comments:

Ashley said...

Wow! Sounds like an exciting and crazy 12 weeks! You will make a great nurse!

Anonymous said...

That will come in handy to you when you're a new grad....if nothing else it'll help with confidence. I didn't do anything like that (internship) and I think it definitely would've given me more confidence had I already had experiences like that. School alone just isn't enough. I feel so clueless...but it'll all come with time & experience.