First Clinical Follow-up
My first real-world clinical was an excellent experience.
First off, and most importantly, no one died! 
I figure that’s always a priority.
We spent the morning in the new born nursery followed by discussions and debriefing after lunch.
Most interesting things: The babies so easily choke on their own spit, and there are quite a few babies born on a regular basis that have extra digits!
They remove the digits by just tying it off with string and before long the necrotized appendage just falls off.
The focus for the day was assessment. After some minor orientation we each, or in pairs, took a baby and began assessing. Most of the babies were in good condition, excepting two in particular. One that was having problems processing bilirubin (a bili-baby) and one who was having trouble breathing and expressing the amniotic fluid. The bili-baby was under a bili-light with a blind-fold and seemed otherwise satisfied. The one that had breathing issues was in the admission nursery (upon delivery a baby actually undergoes an admission process like anyone else).
My most exciting (to me) client was the baby that came in to the admissions nursery from delivery while we were in there. I got to participate in that initial assessment and then once she was determined stable we gave her an initial bath including a much disliked wash-n-rinse of the hair. With all we did she ended up with a below acceptable temperature, so I had the responsibility of monitoring until she was back to stable and within acceptable norms.
Everyone on the team had a great experience. The nurses on the floor were great, both in the nursery and out.
I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start.
With that in the bag, we are only a week away from being halfway done with first semester! Unbelievable!! A couple of lectures this week, and next week is more lab & clinical with mid-term evaluations followed by a test and then it’s a 3 week intercession.
The intercession is already filling up. We have meetings for our group project. I have a ride-along scheduled on the life flight service, and am working to line up 2 more shadows. The school will also be hosting seminars during the last week of the break, so I’ll likely be attending some of those.
On another topic: SU has completed her orientation in her unit and this Wednesday night she’ll be working on her own!! She is most definitely excitably-terrified! lol
Its so great that you get to share your experience with your Spouse! I keep trying to talk my hubby into going to Nursing School too,he prefers animals to people, but at the very least he lets me poke him with IV’s so its all good I guess!
I look forward to hearing more!