Feeling like a nurse!

Today at Clinical (medical/surgical inpatient care at Metro Health Hospital ) I had a couple things happen that made me feel really good. The first happened in the morning. I was discontinuing a PVAD (peripheral venous access device, also called a saline lock, kind of like an IV with the long tubing disconnected) on my patient. While I was removing the catheter, the anesthesiologist came in to see the patient. After removing the catheter I had to hold pressure on the site for a few minutes to keep it from bleeding. The doctor wanted to inspect the patient’s surgical site (on her back) and he asked me, “Can you hold pressure if I have her roll to her left side?” I said I could, so the doctor had the patient roll to her side, finished his assessment, and left. No big deal, right? It didn’t hit me until afterward that the doctor had, in effect, asked me if his assessment was going to interfere with the care I was giving. Holy crap, the stuff I’m doing is important, and recognized as such! *dancedancedance*
The second thing was also not a big deal, but it made me smile. I knocked on my patient’s door and she said, “come in,” then went back to her phone conversation. While I was washing my hands, she said into the phone, “it’s the nurse, can I call you right back?” Okay, so I’m NOT the nurse, I’m the practical nursing student, but it was nice to be called ‘the nurse’.
If only I could feel this good about my current class…the cardiovascular system is really complex and I’m getting way too much information to process at one time. I’m reading and re-reading the chapters and my lecture notes, but it’s just not sinking in. Yeesh.