First Day: Hospital Exposure

Though I didn't get much sleep the night before, I was very early for my first day hospital exposure. I arrived first and being there without any ideas what to do, it was like an embarrassing moment. Well, I got thick face so I pretended not to care from the senior nursing students and staff that were raising eyebrows on me. Thank God my classmates arrive after 20min, it was a relief. i asked them about things to do on our first duty, and like me they don't have idea at all. I reviewed procedures on vital signs taking and assessing patient the night before, but I'm always unsure of my work. And then the C.I. came and eventually it was endorsement around 0730. All nurses came to gather, it started with a prayer, and then the murmur began. As soon as I hear the words that came from the nurse's mouth, I tried writing all the things but it was tough. There were lots of terms and languages that I didn't know and I'm like nose bleeding and I guess my ears were too. So much of what I can't bear, I stopped and instead observed our seniors. I peeked on their notes, and still I can't seem to get the 400, the 200, the bottles thingy.

After the endorsement, the so called "circle" came. All student nurses formed a circle, including me, and the C.I. inspect our gadgets (hehe) and even the socks and undershirts were checked too. The we were assigned to our respective patients. Level twos like me were partnered with a senior so its not kind of scary but then I was already sweating. We've had the morning rounds, I didn't went inside every patient's room, I was focusing on my patient and We might get the room crowded and hot. A few minutes during the rounds, another batch of seniors were pulled out from the other ward to join us so it was a sort of relief again since we will have more tutors and help. Then it was time to meet the patient. I was so amazed that it was now real I mean we only had return demonstrations with classmates as our patients. My patient was really ill, and I was afraid to touch because I might break her arm or bruise her or something. It was time for the vital signs taking and I was starting to shake and unsure of what to do. She was so thin and her skin were sagging since she'a already 72 and she's seriously ill.

I have done several procedures like bed making and partial bath, but still it isn't enough we have a list to fullfil. The most procedure I can't forget was changing the diaper, yeah ew but face the fact its not yet the worst thing compared to perineal or maybe post mortem.

The overall experience was tiring yet we enjoyed. We didn't end up yeheying in the hospital, we still had class and actually had a test. And not to mention someone got into my nerves and she's still in my hate-list. We call her Princess Fiona. Grrrr.

How am I gonna survive these? Waaaaa. Now I'm planning of shifting to other programs, but as much as possible I want to stick with it. I dont know, I might be loving it soon.