Lunch at Denny’s and other things

6/10/08

Pharm Quiz 2, 100. I’m starting to get paranoid here—what if I get accused of cheating, with all these perfect scores? (On the other hand—GO ME!!!1!ELEBENTY!!) Today we had Fundamentals—perioperative care and wound care. The morning was lecture and the afternoon was lab. When I was in the RN program at GRCC, I spent 2 days observing surgeries and they were AWESOME! The first day I was in one OR all day, and got to see a ventriculoperitoneal shunt placement [Ventriculoperitoneal shunt is a surgery performed to relieve pressure inside the skull (intracranial pressure) caused by water on the brain (hydrocephalus). The fluid is drawn off (shunted) from the ventricles of the brain into the abdominal cavity or in rare instances, into the pleural space in the chest.] and a brain tumor removal. The second day I followed one patient (with a uterine mass) through the whole process, from admission to discharge on the same-day surgery unit. The OR and the PACU (Post-Anaesthesia Care Unit) were…did I say awesome already? Let’s just say, of all the things I’ve seen so far (which isn’t many), perioperative nursing is what appeals to me most. Anaesthesia is such a mysterious thing…even anaesthesiologists don’t understand exactly how/why it works. Maybe I’ll be a CRNA (Certified RN Anaesthetist) some day. I’m kind of rambling here. Anyway, after lecture I went to lunch with my carpool buddy/clinical partner and another student from our clinical group. It was nice to just sit with them, and talk about not-school stuff, and get to know them a little more. Both of them have children, so I feel a little ‘out of the loop’ there, but we all have cats, we all have @$$hole ex-boyfriends, we’re all stressing about school, and we’re all looking forward to going back to clinical on Thursday. After lunch I had lab (there are 2 lab groups and they alternate which group goes first. Today my group got out at 3pm and the other group had a 3-hour lunch break; next time it’ll be the other way around). We practiced changing several different kinds of dressings, removing surgical staples, and packing a pressure ulcer (eww!). Of course, we watched a video on wound care…zzz…

Tomorrow is Pharmacology, about medications that affect the Central Nervous System, a continuation of Monday’s lecture. I say again…zzz…but I need to learn these things. I need to learn EVERYTHING!

Going to work on med cards,

Teenie