Cardiac Catheterization Reflection

Last week Thursday on the orthopedic clinic was a slow but eye opening experience. When I got to the clinic at 8AM, after I was introduced to some of the nurses there, I was immediately assigned to a Medical Assistant (MA) that I had shadow for half of the day. The MA shows me around the clinical and explained her role and responsibility in the clinic setting. During the first several hours, and MA and I were quite busy rooming the patient. Because the MA want me to see how to do thoroughly assessment on a new patient, the MA did a thoroughly assessment and examinations on the first patient we saw. During the assessment, the MA also explained some of the medical procedures to the patient. She did a set of vitals on the patient, particular on new patient, such as blood pressure, height, and weight. We had a total of 15 patients during the morning.

Clinical day started slow, I was a bit anxious about waking my patient up that morning but I knew I had to go in. I woke him slowly and took his vitals and proceeded with my assessment. As I assessed my patient, his wife came in to his room and I introduced myself. During the morning I found out that my patient was being discharged. Before discharge, my patient was going to be fitted for a LifeVest.

It was my first time in the second floor OR and I was placed there alone. I went to found Ronny and told him that it is my first time in the OR. He told me that when I go into the OR I must always have a surgical bouffant on. We went to a room in the OR where he gave me a walkie-talkie, this always the front desk to contact me when there is a patient pick-up. He said that it must be on channel one at all times and that the volume should not be loud enough to disturb other that I can hear loud and clear. As I understood him a nurse for help called him for something. As I was waiting for a patient pick-up Ronnie was walking out of the OR telling me that he will be back as soon as possible. As soon as he left there was a call for a patient pick-up.

I went to the Kennebunk Veterinary Hospital on March 8, 2016. This was my fourth week of clinicals but my first day at this site. I went there around ten minutes early and they took me right back. Everyone was very nice and welcoming towards me. My supervisor was not there but she should be next week. When I got to the back room I met all of their doctors, Dr. Shively, Dr. Odrzywolski, and Dr. Porell. I shook hands with them and introduced myself. They then brought me over to one of their veterinary technician, Kathy. She was very nice and gave me a tour of the place. She introduced me to the other technicians and the office staff then showed me the patient rooms. Kathy also showed me their back room where they keep the pets that are staying overnight and their cat that lives there. She was also showing me how

This past Friday in the cardiac catheterization lab I began my day with continuing the work that I was previously assigned to do last week where I collected the data of patient's Cardiothoracic surgery. I continued to familiarize myself with the different types of Cardiothoracic surgery procedures, however, the specific reports I was working with, they are called TAVR report (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement). I later learned and was explained to, the TAVR multiple procedures and its causes, which is aortic stenosis. As for the procedures, a valve needs to be placed in the heart and each procedure delivers it a different way. The three ways the valve can be placed in the heart is through the heart's femoral artery (the transfemoral approach),

When I went in and sat down, I waited for Dr. Stanpole to call me. As I looked around to try and distract myself. Immediately I heard the footsteps of the nurses running past me like a horse in a race. I was confused, then got up from the bench and tapped one of the nurses passing by and queried "What's going on and why is everyone in such a hurry?". She passed me like if I wasn't even there so meanwhile I decided to wait here until I saw Dr. Stanpole coming. I asked him while hesitating, "What's going on, but mainly how's

An hour or so into my first day at my internship and my mentor gets a call from the Emergency Room about an elderly patient who came in complaining of chest pain. After running some tests and EKGs, the ER staff finds some abnormal results which slightly suggest that the patient might be having a heart attack. The patient is rushed into the cath lab while my mentor has to leave to attend a case at another facility so he leaves me with his partner Dr. Fernandez to watch the case. Dr. Fernandez starts the procedure of cardiac catheterization in which he plants a stent in the patient’s heart in roughly 30 minutes. Although the patient suffered no heart attack, Dr. Fernandez found some narrowing the patient’s heart. That was my first day of my

Catheter angiography can accurately evaluate aortic pararenal patency. This is especially important when placing engrafts at the iliac bifurcation site. CTA is more sensitive to assessing endoleaks occurring after EVAR procedures, but digit subtraction angiography (DSA) is more accurate in classifying endoleaks. This is possible because the direction of flow in or out of the aneurysm site can be evaluated via DSA. Catheter angiography plays a role in imaging intraoperative EVAR patients for endoleak classification and for post-operative re-intervention (Francois et al., 2012). Figure 5 illustrates an arteriogram taken in preparation for an EVAR procedure, while Figure 6 was taken after the EVAR procedure was

This Friday at the Cardiac Catheterization Lab was a bit more uneventful than most of the previous days and compared to most of the experiences I have had in the past. My mentor was not there this week, nor will she be here this week but there was still a lot for me to do and I know many of the other employees in the cardiology department so they put me to work which was great. Since I was not here during spring break and the other volunteer that works in the cardiac office on Wednesdays (or Thursdays) was not there either, so all the completed patient files had piled up in the bins and outside of the bins. I normally only have about ten to twenty files to put away, however, I had about forty to fifty or so patient files to file away and it

This Friday was a very eventful and exciting day at the Cardiac Catheterization Lab. When I first arrived at the office I asked my mentor, Maria, if there were any procedures that I could watch. After two phone calls, there was one surgery that had just begun that I could sit in and watch. When I went to the control room, I had looked through the glass and I had noticed that there were at least six or seven people in the surgery room. After about five minutes watching the surgery and the screen that projected the heart, the tech guy that I met a few weeks ago comes into the control room, says hi, and tells me that this is a good case for me to watch because it is a different surgery than the ones I have previously seen. In this case, the patient

One of my best days in nursing school occurred in the ICU with an intubated elderly patient. I met this patient during her “sedation vacation,” which means that the nurse allowed this patient to awaken slightly from sedation. Health care providers place intubated patients on sedatives to prevent them from panicking and removing their endotracheal (ET) tubes. Well, during my patient's "sedation vacation" she felt incredibly afraid and confused. Her eyes were wide with fear and she did not understand her situation. She reached out to everyone entering her room and attempted to speak to them. However, no one could understand her desperate attempts to communicate due to her ET tube. I walked into the patient’s room to hold her hand, and somehow

This week at the clinic was super chaotic due to the fact that it was the reopening of the hospital after the hurricane. We were closed on Monday considering that there was a major power outage in the area which effected my clinic. Tuesday I helped the other technicians with putting different items back to their original places. I also assisted in taking the hurricane shutters down. I liked doing this only considering that it allowed me to experience what the clinic does during emergency situations. It also taught me where certain items go or might be placed during an emergency shutdown situation. As the week started to come back to normalcy, I was able to try to do a fecal float and fecal direct by myself without help. I'm a person who has

This Friday at the hospital was pretty uneventful since my supervisor/mentor was not that the cardiac catheterization lab this day, most likely due to the snow and bad weather. Unsurprisingly, quite of few people showed up late or not at all. However, since my mentor was not that the hospital, I mostly helped out in the catheterization lab office with multiple different tasks. When I first arrived I organized a pile of patient files from oldest to the most recent, which had some stuff dating as early as a week or two ago and as old as election day of last year. After putting the patient's files in order on one of the tables in the office there were a bunch of folders with dates on them, so I had to place all the files in the matching folders

The way in which South and Central America, including the Caribbean Islands, categorize its individuals involves a complex conflict that is quite different from the Black and White binary we see in the United States. The racial situation is comprised of the struggle between one’s culture, self-identification, and physical characteristics. We learned more about this struggle from the individuals in the Dominican Republic in the film, Mirrors of the Heart, along with coming to understand the significance of history on the racial system.

Today I did my internship in the radiograph area of the clinic. Due to an office closure the Tuesday prior, the patient count double. This is because all patients were rescheduled for the next Tuesday without staggering their appointments. We were working franticly to move patients, but on this particular day the office was understaffed. I was in the radiograph room taking radiographs. I captured the radiographs of about 30 patients. At four bitewings a piece, that’s a lot of pictures. I was able to do it in a timely manner. I was fine with it though because I needed more practice on my radiographs. The receptionist/office manager had mentioned that if I had not come, it would have taken twice as long. There isn’t anyone actually on the payroll. Because of this, help varies quite a bit on a daily basis.