Personal Narrative: My First Clinical

I took an Anatomy class my Junior year, and I really liked it. I had always maintained an A in the class. It was very fascinating learning about the body. There are so many things that I didn’t even know and this got me more interested in obtaining a career in the medical field. When I was younger, I had always wanted to be a doctor. When I entered high school , I sort of changed my mind. I was doubting in become a doctor because it was going to take to many years. I wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it but now I am. This year I decided to take a medical terminology class and a medical assistant front office class. I'm so happy that I decided to take them because now I know for sure I want to study in the medical field . These subjects

Day four of clinicals was really long. The first patient was scheduled from 8 until 1, he was getting fitted for 4 crowns and an implant crown. When the patient came in he had a horrible odor and looked like he hasn’t taken care of himself in months. I seated him down and the dental assistant just glanced at his teeth and looked at me strangely and whispered come here and look. I look in this old man’s mouth and saw nothing but a brown layer of plaque and calculus build up and it disgusted me. How could someone not take care of their selves? Anyways, we ended up sending him to the hygienist's room next to us and they cleaned his teeth extra good. He came back into the room and Dr. Williams came in and quickly did a check up on his teeth and

Overall it was an amazing experience and I had a lot of fun. I hope that my next CI is just as nice/fun. I am looking forward to my future clinical to see what working in the other settings is

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

Week three in clinical was difficult for me, I had a great experience overall but I hated seeing and holding a baby that had passed away at 21 weeks. To know what the family could possibly be going through was heartbreaking. I wouldn’t exactly know what to do if I was with the patient and her family exactly. I do know that I did place her in the room when she was admitted to triage. I do feel good about seeing the scenario play out, while being a student rather than being in the field alone. Other than that I was able to see the beginning stage of labor as well as a C-section. Everyone was so bent out of shape on making sure I eat and that I don’t faint, but it seriously wasn’t bad. As a matter of fact I was too intrigued with the mother rather

The sharp scratch of pencil lead sprinting across thick layers of paper, rapid rustles of flipping pages, and the neurotic tapping of pens on hard wooden desk surfaces are sounds that I grew very accustomed to during my junior year of high school. I was taking a class called Clinical Rotations, which allowed me to rotate through different units at two major San Antonio hospitals. Being constantly surrounded by illness, chaos, and frigid sterility wore heavily on my angst-ridden, seventeen year old self. But despite the stressful surroundings and slightly depressing aura, it was during these rotations that I met someone who truly changed my life.

This past Thursday was the first OB clinical day and I was assigned the post partum unit. I was paired with Nurse Donna, who was full of information. Originally we had three couplets, with one baby in the nursrey. As the day went on and families were discharged, all our patients had gone home so we gained three other patients from two other nurses so they could go home for the day. I was able to give two moms their TDAP (tetanus, diptheria, and pertusis) vaccines and learned a new trick when it comes to giving intramuscular shots. Donna told me to have the patient hang her arm down by her side and wiggle her fingers. This not only had the patient concentrating on something other than the shot they were about to get, but it helped activate the

I had such a great day at clinical yesterday. I was finally able to see a vaginal delivery and that entire process. When I arrived in the morning, the mom had just received Cytotec, to help induce labor and ripen her cervix. She was forty-one weeks and zero. Around ten thirty in the morning, she asked for her epidural to manage her pain. We bolused her with fifteen hundred milliliters of lactated ringers to prevent hypotension. Shane was the certified registered nurse anesthesiologist (CRNA) who administered the epidural. It was very cool watching him administer all the needed pain relief medication before he administered the epidural to make sure that it would be placed in the epidural space in the spine. Then administered a small test dose, waited till a few blood pressures were taken, then administered the remaining about through an epidural pump. After the epidural was administered, I was able to administer her foley catheter. I was so happy that I was finally able to place one. I learned a few tricks from Maura (my nurse) as well. She taught me that it was easier to take the top off of the lubricant syringe and to place the tip of the foley inside of the syringe, that way it will not wiggle around and become unsterile. She also taught me to grab from the bottom of the labia and pull up, that way it ensures that I will have a clear entrance to

“Oh I got my heart right here. Oh I got my scars right here…” With the slow beat of The Weeknd, I took a right onto the highway. Where was I going? I didn’t know. I was just going to drive my thoughts away. Peering down into my windows, the moon shone on my interior, lighting up everything. It was just me, the moon, and my freedom. I turned the radio louder to blast out my thoughts and just think about the song. I do this therapeutically. Driving makes me feel better, especially when I have no certain destination or deadline. My only goal is to chase the moon in an eternal game of tag, but for some reason I’m always “it”.

My first week went really well! I was definately both nervous and excited on the first day. I was nervous because I wasn't sure how the clinic would run and I quickly learned that it is a very fast paced clinic. My CI sees patients every 15 minutes and he is both the only PT there and the owner of the clinic. I have been learning a lot about PT treatments as well as the buisness side of the PT clinic. He has a lot of PT aides that help with exercises and setting patients up with ice and stim ect. The fast paced clinic was definately something I had to get used to. I was a little overwhelmed when we would just start with a patient and a new patient would walk in the door. However, there is a very good flow in the clinic and everyone is always

My clinical experience today has been a completely different, from any others. Today, Ashley my preceptor was scheduled as the charge nurse. I was surprised by the differences between a floor nurse and a charge nurse with their different responsibility each of them possessed. My first thoughts of a charge nurse were to merely fill in the cracks in the floor, to assist other nurses maintain their patient loads and to cover breaks and lunches, all the same, that is not always the case. This clinical experience has supplied me with a whole new aspect, as well as, a great deal of esteem for the charge nurse. In addition, to the previous mention responsibilities of a charge nurse, in

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

My Clinical Instructor is Laura Homan at Winter Pediatric Therapy. She works with kid from all ages between infant to adolescent, because this is a pediatric clinic. The types of clients she treats are variety, such as Autism, Down’s syndrome, ADHD, Developmental Delay, Epilepsy, and Gene Mutation. She used a lot of toys from games, puzzles, musical toys, colorful objects, different shapes, and texture blocks to get the attention and participation of her clients. She has been working at this clinic since March of 2016. She has always wanted to work with kid. She wanted to be a teacher at first, but heard about Occupational Therapy in college. So she decided to go for Occupational Therapy program. She fell in love with it when she went for

Our clinicals at Cadbury at Lewes is quickly approaching an end and we are still learning new things each day. Everyday we do something new and so another skill is checked off. Yesterday, we got numerous things done, it was a very busy day.

This was the best clinical experience I had in nursing school because I felt as if I was truly making a difference in peoples’ lives. I was supporting mothers with the delivery of their babies and completing families.