I’m finally on my last clinical rotation of my first year of nursing school. Crazy, right? I still have eight more weeks of “integration” from the end of March to the middle of May, but this is my last of what are called the “five by fives”, so named because they are five five week clinical rotations in different areas.
ANYWAY. This one, med/surg, is the one I’ve been dreading most. My summer rotation involved a lot of bed baths, adult diapers, and bed sores. I was totally not looking forward to more of that. The first week of this rotation was canceled due to the snowstorm, and I was not-so-secretly stoked. I even accidentally CC’ed the administration on an email saying as much. Whoops.
So this week I was nervous. Was I going to have to do more wound dressings? Ew. Was I going to have to use all those skills I’d only practiced on a dummy on real people? Scary!
The first day, we got the most thorough tour that we’ve gotten in any of the rotations so far. The second day, I got to do more nurse-type stuff than I have anywhere else. All in all, I’d say it’s going as well as can be expected. I got to do two different kinds of tracheostomy suctioning! I’d totally been dreading it, but I did it! I also helped take out a foley catheter! Cool! We’re working with awesome nurses who really want us to learn, but without just throwing us into situations we can’t handle! Woo hoo!
Thankfully, all the dread seems to be unfounded. The light at the end of the tunnel is hella bright.
