A little strength needed

Blasted Sterility

Today I had my second check off for semester 2 on hanging IV's. That's all we had to do. Hang them. We didn't need to start the IV or anything. The demonstration was this the last couple of weeks was a disaster. It was like the professors didn't even know what they were doing for sure.
I was very frustrated and talked to my professor about it and she apologized and said things were a little more messy than she'd like. I was nervous.

When we walked into lab they made changes to the check off process, and I was irritated. But I went in confident that I had practiced it enough and my peers checked me off and I did great. But there was one thing that nobody, not even me noticed. The reason I failed the check off!

I get everything ready, do my three checks, five rights, prime my tubing beautifully with no bubbles, and then things start going downhill. I could not for the life of me find the little alligator tail piece that I brought in with me. So I raise the side rail, lower the bed, leave the room, get the darned thing, and go back in. Check my pt again just to make sure, hook the IV up, regulate my rate, and I'm thinking even with the stumble I did pretty good. My professor came and checked my drip rate and it was good, then my timer went off. And she said I didn't pass. I thought dang it! If only I had not lost the little tail piece.

But that wasn't it. Apparently I broke sterility because when I left the room I didn't recap the tip of my tubing and just placed it on the bed. I was flustered because we were never taught how to do it. I wiped it with alcohol before I hooked it to the port because I knew I had set it down but she said that wasn't good enough, but it was no longer sterile. I really wish our professors would get it together. How am I supposed to know these details if I'm not taught them? So off I go to recheck later this week or next.

NICU?

I've been thinking a lot lately of what nursing specialty I'd like to go into. For some time I've been thinking I'd like to take care of babies. I asked my professors and in order to work in nursery I'd mostly be doing post partum care with the mothers and spending very little time with the babies since moms are discharged shortly after birth nowadays. I don't think I'd enjoy L&D because again I'd be taking care of the moms. So I thought NICU! NICU would be perfect! I'd be taking care of babies all shift long, and of course there's the part of it where I'm comforting mom and dad about their baby. And there's lots of sadness about babies that don't quite make it, and babies that are in NICU because their mom was a drug addict and now I'm taking care of their baby in NICU that's addicted to meth and suffering because of it. But there's the happy part. The part of the couple that had been trying for years to conceive and they were able to get pregnant and their little one that they waited so long for is in NICU but fairly stable.

After taking of care of adults last semester I didn't quite love it like I thought I would. I loved the elderly in AL, but they were fairly health people and I formed a bond with them. In the hospital they are very sick, and grumpy, and uncomfortable and they're not nice. There's not much you can do to make them happy. Most of my patients were tired of being sick and just wanted to die. Most of them were suffering because of lifestyle choices they made like smoking and obesity. The major problems were hypertension, diabetes, and COPD. All three due to lifestyle choices. Even though I felt bad, and had sympathy for them, I often felt frustrated that they'd allow themselves to get to that point. But I digress.

I won't know for sure what to until I do my Pedis rotation. I may not have the heart to take care of children. I hurt for the parents and the children. I'll find out. I hope I can do it. We'll find out in October.

After I graduate I'm hoping to get an internship into the area I'd like to go into. The NICU internship is 16 weeks long. I'd have a preceptor that would work with me, a more experienced nurse that would teach me what to do. The majority of our professors recommend a year in a Med-Surg floor before going into any specialty. Med-Surg is the core of nursing. They believe that it would solidify our skills, improve critical thinking, time management, and dexterity. Critical care is a little out there for the amount of knowledge we have right out of school. I can see where they're coming from and it does scare me to go into a critical care setting right out of school.
My one question is this, med-surg is an adult floor, mostly older adults, so how would that prepare me to take care of babies!?

I have lots of decisions to make!! I'll start applying for internships around February 09. They start in June. By then I will have gone through Tele, med-surg, OB, Pedis, and Psyc rotation so I'm hoping to have a better idea of what to do! No matter what I choose I just want to be really good at it!