Where do babies come from?

I can officially answer that question now that I have completed my “Mother-Baby” rotation. I am very glad to have learned about women’s issues, but I have to say that I am very glad to be done with this rotation. My biggest complaint…the nurses that I had to shadow. With only a couple of exceptions the nurses did not provide a very good learning environment. I recall my day in the nursery when I was supposed to follow the “baby catcher”; she wanted nothing to do with me. I tried to ask pertinent questions, be helpful, all the things a good student nurse should do, but got nothing from her except sighs and short answers. Most of the L&D nurses would ask their patient if it would be alright for a male student nurse to come in and observe. You can only guess what most of the answers were…”No, I don’t think so”. I understand that when it comes to certain procedures, it would be appropriate for a male student nurse to leave or make himself scarce, but if I’m a nurse with a student following me I state that I will have a student with me today to the patient. My last day of clinical I was paired with a great nurse. She was absolutely great. She told the patient who I was and what I was doing. I learned more with my short time with that nurse than I did the entire semester. I really hope that when I get my license that I’ll be able to help students learn what they need to learn.

All in all, I learned a lot this semester (mostly from the lecture classes), but I am glad to be moving on. I am not taking any classes this summer, so I’ve got three months to lounge around and do nothing…..right? Well, I have started on a couple of projects that I’ll discuss next time.

-DV

The Wee Sick Ones

I haven’t posted on this blog since before Christmas. Sorry about that. I have just completed my Pedi/Ob semester. While it really wasn’t my cup-o-tea, it could have been much worse. I started out this semester in the local children’s hospital. Having to see so many very sick little kids is really heartbreaking, but that’s not what I was worried about. I was more worried about the dragon-headed, student nurse-eating, what-do-you-think-you-are-doing-with-my-child parents. I know my wife and let me tell you, I don’t ever want to be the nurse in charge of her child when the child is gravely ill. I get the whole interrogation act when my daughter gets the sniffles here at home. However, to my surprise all of the parents that I met were incredibly understanding of my situation. This included the parents who were nurses themselves and the parent of a child who terribly needed a complete intestinal transplant. My clinical instructor for this section was very tough. While I liked her just fine, many of my colleagues did not. I’m pretty sure that my “B” in clinical was one of the higher grades. In my final evaluation, I was told that I did extremely well. Why the heck didn’t I get an A then?….We missed a couple of days due to the mega ice storm of the century, and I was graded as “just short of becoming independent” due to the acts of God I cannot control, which would have given me an A. I suppose I should have prayed harder.

In the next post I’ll fill you in on where babies come from. Trust me, I know!

Spring 2011 Teaser

Doh....did I forget to blog this semester? Damn, it's almost like I didn't want to remember anything about my OB/Pedi semester. Oh, wait. I don't. Well, not exactly. I was pretty busy trying to make the grade, AND I don't really want to remember too much about this semester. I had my last clinical today in OB. One more lecture tomorrow and a final next week.

I'll post more about this semester later. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still here.

Time to go pick up the little one from school.

-DV