Reflections
First I just wanted to again say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart to everyone who sent their thoughts to me during my difficult time (see previous post). I so so so appreciate it. We’re all still sad (I guess we’ll always be sad in some ways), but my family and I are starting to feel better and despite the void in the house things are getting back to normal.
I wanted to dedicate a post to reflections of last semester. I took Acute Care (aka MedSurg) and Psych/Mental Health Nursing in the Spring 2010 semester. I felt like I really got put to the test both in clinical and in class.
Psych Class: Not the most difficult class (that’s okay by me), but still an important one. Psych is present in every aspect of nursing. I felt we did a very generic overview of most of it, however and didn’t focus on very many of the specific diseases (went in depth on Schizophrenia and Depression mostly and then only touched on some of the other ones). Needing Psych 101 as a pre-req we’ve all had the general overview of Psych, so I wish we had gone more into the nurse’s role with the treatment of each disease. I did get to read Just Checking: Scenes from the Life of an Obsessive Compulsive by Emily Colas and then write a nursing focused paper on the book. Great book that is humorous, easy/quick read, and really captures the picture of someone suffering from OCD. We did study heavily in class the psych medications, which (as I saw in clinical) does seem to be a huge part of the psych nurse’s job.
Psych Clinical: I do not recommend any school/program allowing students to do psych clinical rotations during the evening shift. I am considered a “day student”, but since there are not that many hospitals near me they put me on a night clinical that was closer to my home. Which at the time I VERY MUCH appreciated. I still appreciate it, but I would’ve so much rather have done a day clinical. You don’t see anything at night at least not in respect to nurses. (there were a couple admissions while we were there and only a couple of people in the group got to go to one and they came back and said that it was amazing and they really saw a side to psych nurses that we hadn’t seen all semester, but they had to beg our instructor to let them go and she wouldn’t let anyone else, so I wish she had taken things like that more into consideration, but oh well). And the patients are tired. They didn’t want us there. I felt like in that clinical more than in any other clinical I was a waste of space. I did get some good conversations with patients though and I feel definitely more confident in my “therapeutic communications” skills, so I guess all was not lost!
Acute Care Class: What a pain. I learned SO MUCH. But almost too much. I feel like I didn’t get a chance to wrap my head around anything enough to fully grasp it. I was always behind in the readings (not because of lack of reading either…it was just legit almost impossible) and I was always stressed. I believe this is somewhat of a universal feeling among nursing students though. Some people may like/enjoy the class more than others (I would put myself somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between love and hate), but everyone agrees with how difficult it is just because of the sheer amount of material thrown at you with so little nursing/nursing student experience (I find that if I have an experience with a certain disease, patient, nursing intervention, etc. I of course remember it so much better). So that was that. Glad I took the class. Even more glad it’s over.
Acute Care Clinical: This is what I’ve been waiting to talk about. This was such an amazing experience. FANTASTIC clinical group. Really strong instructor. She admitted on the last day of clinical that she gave me a lot of tough patients (not on purpose). Some people in my group seemed to get a similar experience every week. Mine changed DRASTICALLY from week to week. I had a lot of emotional patients (dealing with death, illness, etc.), some controversial issues, and some very rewarding moments where I made the right call and really felt I helped my patients. Even the days when I left and wanted to cry I found them in retrospect to be GREAT learning experiences and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I had patients cry to me, talk to me, yell at me, and hug and thank me. I loved it loved it loved it! I am so excited about this career. I can’t wait to continue with more clinicals and become a nurse!!!
So I actually ended up with 2 B+ (as opposed to what I originally thought one B and one B+) officially. Glad it’s over. Glad to start fresh with pediatrics and maternity! I’ll post on Sunday with thoughts about my first week!!
I’m off to Rochester for the weekend to the RIT graduation to see my boyfriend graduate! Congrats Sam!!! I love you!
~love always~
Jen
