I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was one o'clock around my lunch period, but I needed to go the nurse’s office because I discover something and I wanted to know what was it. Sitting in the medical office while she examines me, she begins to tell me what was going on with me. I felt my chest tighten like I couldn’t breathe and I wanted to cry in front of her, but I didn’t want to show her. I waited for her to leave the room, I cried myself. Heading to my math class feeling ashamed and embarrassed, I wanted to crawl under a rock so nobody can see me or ask me a question, but all my thoughts stopped when I walked inside the classroom sitting at my desk. Being in class with a bunch of boys was hard, you had to be strong and not show
My second clinic rotation is internal medicine and I’ve had many encounters, both with patients and colleagues, which have made me pause and reflect. One of those encounters, in particular, will still be on my mind long after I finish typing this reflective journal. The patient at the center of it all is a lady I’ll refer to from here on as “Mrs. Flowers.” Mrs. Flowers is an 81 year old female with dementia and diabetes. She arrived on our unit with a diabetic foot infection that had progressed from a simple toe ulcer to wet gangrene. Over the last 2-3 months, gangrenous changes encompassed the distal half of her left foot. During pre-rounds, our medical team unanimously agreed that we would contact surgery for a consult. At time, it was obvious
The person who I choose to interview was a close friend of mine named Ashely who is both a homecare aid and medical office assistant. She has been a homecare aid for around two years and just completed the program for becoming a medical office assistant.
Getting into the specialty center would mean a lot to me. I love art and want to learn more about how I could improve to become better and better. I have always wanted to become a famous artist or just any regular art teacher when I grow older throughout the years. My favorite art media to use is just using pencil or making objects out of clay. I take art as a way of focusing on what you feel by not physically talking it out like an art therapist. It gives me confidence knowing that what I feel like doing is the best thing for me to do.
Katlynn was out of the hospital after about a week and a half. All of us girls cleaned the house spotless upon her arrival. That may not sound like much, but we were young girls that lived on a farm, so being messy was pretty much our thing. Katlynn came home and we all showered her with hugs. The first week she was home we watched her like a hawk, trying not to make it noticeable. Since Kate got out of the hospital she has to take pills every morning and night, and she had to make a trip to Mason city twice a year. Today she only goes once a year because she hasn’t suffered a seizure since. There have been a few scares here and there, though. It’s been seven and a half years since that terrible day, and Kate’s doing great. She is at the age
Today in clinical, I offered a male patient to perform a full bed bath. It was my first time performing a full bed bath on a male and the thought of this made me feel a little nervous because I had only practiced this task in the simulation lab and the thought of performing peri-care on the male gender was intimidating. I began to gather my items and throughly think about how I would normally perform a bed bath on a female and the difference of genital areas. As I brought the items into the room, my patient was friendly and helpful in directing his preferences of which areas he wanted to be washed first. His friendly personality made me calm down in a situation where I would normally be on my toes, as I was not thinking about my
On Thursday June 14, 2017, I had to return a page from the emergency room (ER) doctor for and admit. When I returned the page the ER doctor wanted to admit a patient with stage 4 brain cancer that was a DNR for hospice care. I told the ER doctor that this was not an appropriate because this patient needed and wanted hospice care and that the hospitalist did not need to be involved. The ER doctor proceeded to tell me that I don’t want to do my job and I need to admit the patient so he could get the care that he needed. When he told me that over the phone I almost lost my cool and professionalism in a matter of seconds. I hung up the phone and walked down to the ER. I went into the patient room and spoke to the family members and they told me
My wrists burned terribly and the stinging pain seemed to rivet through my entire body. I didn't mind it though,it gave me a sense of being alive, a sense of that somewhere in the midst of this all, I'm still human and even thought I feel dead, I know I'm not.
What a horrible horrible day it was. It all started the first day of 6th grade here at Memorial Middle School. My mom walked in with me to get my schedule because we didn’t go to open house. I went up to my protime and it was in the art room with Mrs. Teerink. My mom sat down at a table with me and I was really scared and embarrassed. Then, to make it even worse, I started bawling my eyes out. While a lot of people walked in, and by a lot of people it was like 20, but it felt like it was a million.
My journey at the woman’s hospital started off with me changing into a comfortable and fashionable pair of black scrubs. Once I was changes I was lead into a Cesarean section. The first step of this is to administer an epidural to the patient’s spine, which interestingly, is comprised of a predetermined amount based off of height rather than weight. This is because the height, and length of the spinal cord, is not determined by weight. After the patient is numbed, they make a cut near the bottom of the abdomen. After they cut through the skin, fat, and muscle tissue they reached the uterus. When the uterus was exposed, the surgeon carefully cut it open in small, brush like, strokes in order to avoid cutting the baby. Once the baby was exposed, a suction device was placed into the uterus and attached onto the baby’s head, where a suction force was applied. With the suction cup in place, the babies head was pulled past the wall of the uterus and the skin until it was exposed to air. At this point, the suction cup was removed and the baby was pulled out by it’s head. After the baby was removed and placed in a separate bed where it’s vitals can be monitored, the focus was placed back on the mother, who had been awake throughout all of the previous steps to report perceived problems. They began to tie her tubes, which she had requested
It is a quarter to 10 o clock when I find myself driving steadily in the pitch black darkness of night on the freeway. My father is sitting uncomfortably in the passenger seat next to me and the entirety of the situation is extremely disquieting. Every couple of minutes I shudder at the sound of his cough. Not only does it sound and look agonizing but the sudden outbursts startle me every once in a while. The ride however does not proceed without dialogue as my father periodically gives me directions. Without them I feel I would not know how navigate to our destination on my own as I am still an inexperienced driver. We are on our way to the emergency room on what would have been an otherwise stale, uneventful school night. The whole time worst
On November 30th, 2015, I ventured to the Santa Monica Convalescent Center to spend time with patients in the dementia ward. At first, I thought I would not enjoy spending almost two hours with people who were unable to be cognitively present due to varying degrees of dementia and Alzheimer’s, which impairs their ability to retain memories and sometimes returns them to an almost baby-like mindset. However, I soon formed several bonds with many of the residents there. A woman named Kathy, a volunteer from nearby Presbyterian church, handed out copies of well known Christian hymns and soon everyone was chiming in as best as they could. I then sat down across from a woman named Alice and asked her about her life. She is an elderly African American woman who answered my questions with very opinionated and interesting answers.
It’s been two days and my stomach would not rest, it was constantly turning and nothing could calm down my nerves. Today was the day my mom comes back from the Doctors. I never really knew what was going on except the fact that Mother was very sick. 3rd grade started to become a wee bit more challenging. It was a Friday, November 2nd, so it was a little chilly with a bitter winter breeze. The air felt like needles on young 9 year old’s skin. The walk from the bus was a much different one than usual, today was the day mommy comes home. As we walked into the classroom (my brother and I) hardly any students were there at the moment. I greeted my teacher and walked to my seat and began working on the morning start up. As more people strode in we began our day by starting out with a spelling test which I got 8 out of 10. This past week had been rough but it was finally going to be over. Lunch was a upon us and I was eating a PB and J. My dad packed me the simplest food choices because he was unwilling to do anything extravagant. My stomach had been growling all morning not to mention all of the nerves. It felt like a party was going on down there. Right after lunch we had recess, I regularly ran the mile club. I let out a sigh of relief as the school day was finally over. Then I began to prepare for the bus, I grabbed a sharp enough pencil to defend myself to what was about to come. I made a decoy sandwich so I could eat my other sandwich in peace. As the final bell rang
On Wednesday morning I was very nervous, anxious and excited about my first day of clinicals. My biggest concern was hoping I wouldn’t get a bad CNA to shadow. Thankfully Marry paired me with an amazing CNA that has been working as a CNA for almost 20 years. That morning I sat with my CNA and we listened to the night CNA about how all of the pas senates were doing. We heard that there was someone that had to get in a five point restraint that night. Therefor I was very excited to see what it really looked like for someone to be restrained. I soon went it that room and met the old little women with black and blue eyes and restrained to the bed. Before my breakfast break I became very attached to this old women. The first day surprised me a lot!
I was very nervous before I went to the floor. I had no idea what have to do and how to start my day with my patient. When I first entered to onto the floor I realized the unit was little different than the usual floor. The floor was so quiet and basically there very few people were outside of the room. Once we got a tour of the unit I got to attend group with some patients. I was still nervous and lots of thought were running in my mind. I was looking for my patient and trying to figured out how should I talked to her so she feels comfortable with me. My actual patient was trying to ignore me, so I sat in the room with other patient and started to talk to one patient. I was feeling confident as I started to talk to her, because she was responding
Today started as a normal day. I woke up at four to get ready for my shift. Being a doctor doesn't have the best schedule. You go in when they tell you and you can't leave until they say so. To me saving lives is worth it otherwise i wouldn't have dealt with college. On my commute to work i made my usual stop at the local coffee shop and continued on. As i was approaching the hospital my pager went off, it was my boss telling me that someone was going in for an emergency operation and that i was needed in the operation room as soon as possible. I ran the rest of the way and got into my scrubs as soon as i could. When i got the the operation room they had already started so i went to get some info from the nurses. According to one of them the patient was a fifty