NO SIGNIFICANT FIGURES!
So I have started doing my summer “homework”–going through the first four chapters of this lovely book, Math for Clinical Practice, shown to the left (ignore the cute table cloth–I am housesitting and they have little kids). That is also my new basic calculator since all I had was a graphing one. Overall the homework is easy as expected. I have done the first two chapters which consisted of relative values, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals. The problems themselves are easy and the math is easy, but interestingly what has been getting me is the nursing/medical way of writing the answers. It took me a minute to figure out that mcg was micrograms instead of using the symbol mu, which I don’t know how to type into my blog. And there is no significant figures! So if the answer comes out to be 3.0 mg with sig figs it is just 3 mg in nursing terms. In chemistry (my first undergrad major) it was all about the sig figs. Almost never did we see whole numbers without .0 behind them. It is taking a bit to untrain myself haha. But that’s good. It is making me think more about what I’m doing instead of mindlessly going through the math. Tomorrow I plan to do Chapter 3, which is fractions and Friday I’ll do Chapter 4, which is Units of Measure. And then that’s all my homework, since I already did the math review worksheet a while ago. I will obviously review again before school starts in September just to make sure I’m doing it the way the school wants me to do it, that I’m not making any stupid mistakes, and that I do have that nursing way of writing numbers down. I’m just bored and all alone at my housesitting job, so why not get it out of the way.
I have been playing with the nursing apps I just put on my iPod Touch a few days ago. I love them! LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM! They’re so much fun. When I am outside with the dogs I’m taking care of I just bring it with me and I sit and read about different drugs and diseases and what medical words mean, etc etc. I calculated my BMI, a pretend APGAR score, and some other fun things. I sound wicked nerdy right now, but I’m just so excited for all this stuff! There is so much on there that I have no clue what it is, so I’m excited to learn about that too. I would say I’m pretty computer competent (not proficient just competent) thanks to my IT major boyfriend, but have never gotten too into electronics, so I was not sure how I would like my PDA. But surprisingly I’m just so in love <3 I can’t wait to get to use it in clinicals!!
Added a new link to the “Nurse/Nursing Student Blogs I Love to Read” List. Undergradrn is awesome!! I caught up in her life over the past weekend/this week. Check her out!
I also added pics from my vacation–specifically the zoo. Scroll down to check them out!
That’s all for now–nothing else new with me: still housesitting, still dog walking. Doctor’s appointment tomorrow (with a nurse practitioner yay!) and dentist appointment Friday oh how fun (sarcasm).
~love always~
Jen
p.s. 27 days until Orientation!! LESS THAN FOUR WEEKS!
