Look Out Nursing Home Residents, Here We Come
In the Nursing Assistant class we had another test today. No, I did not get 100% *sigh* I did get 84%, lower than my last score, but still passing. We need at least 76%. I worried that I hadn't passed until we got the results. There were so many questions I should have known the answers to. Two people got less than 76%. Ordinarily they would have to discontinue the program. The instructor told them to stay after class for a discussion. We started out with 24 of us. That quickly dwindled to 21. Then it was 20 of us for about the last 5 class days.
Tomorrow is our first clinical practice at a nursing home in Saline. I'll have to be up before the sun in order to hook up with my ride in the Meijer parking lot at 6:00 AM and be at the nursing home by 6:55 AM. After a quick tour we will be paired off, then given our assigned residents. There will be 3 instructors looking after us, two of whom have been to class every day helping us learn our skills. There may be 18 of us unless the other 2 people decide to stay and observe.
Yesterday we learned to dress people while they are still in bed. I volunteered to be the one dressed first in our group. I'd had a stroke and had weakness on my right side. Then we dressed another girl so I could do the dressing. This is what we were dressed into:
I had taken off the pj top & bottoms and was putting my shoes back on when the girl on the left asked me if I was going to "leave those on". She asked me a couple times and I didn't know what she was talking about. Someone else asked me about the underwear:
I still had them on.
The instructor laughed and told them they shouldn't have reminded me just to see how long I walked around with those underpants on. I laughed and said I could have gone to my next class wearing them.
We had it lucky. Some people had to put on whole outfits including a bra, blouse, blazer, etc. (isn't using "etc." illegal now? tough! I'm using it, arrest me!)
Anyhoo, here is a picture of one of the mannequins we work on for other things like bathing & grooming techniques and catheter care. FYI there are 12 mannequins in 12 beds, 6 on each side of the room. When we learned other stuff like transferring from bed to wheelchair and back again, changing bed linens and whatnot we took the mannequins out of the beds, sat them in chairs at the back of the class and took turns being in the beds. This one is not wearing a wig.
A close-up of one that has a wig:
They are hermaphrodites. Their genitalia are removable in order to switch between male & female. Naturally, as soon as everyone heard that last week we they had to see for ourselves themselves. Only a couple of them had a tracheotomy, most of them have one dilated pupil & one contracted pupil.
Tomorrow is our first clinical practice at a nursing home in Saline. I'll have to be up before the sun in order to hook up with my ride in the Meijer parking lot at 6:00 AM and be at the nursing home by 6:55 AM. After a quick tour we will be paired off, then given our assigned residents. There will be 3 instructors looking after us, two of whom have been to class every day helping us learn our skills. There may be 18 of us unless the other 2 people decide to stay and observe.
Yesterday we learned to dress people while they are still in bed. I volunteered to be the one dressed first in our group. I'd had a stroke and had weakness on my right side. Then we dressed another girl so I could do the dressing. This is what we were dressed into:
I had taken off the pj top & bottoms and was putting my shoes back on when the girl on the left asked me if I was going to "leave those on". She asked me a couple times and I didn't know what she was talking about. Someone else asked me about the underwear:
I still had them on.
The instructor laughed and told them they shouldn't have reminded me just to see how long I walked around with those underpants on. I laughed and said I could have gone to my next class wearing them.
We had it lucky. Some people had to put on whole outfits including a bra, blouse, blazer, etc. (isn't using "etc." illegal now? tough! I'm using it, arrest me!)
Anyhoo, here is a picture of one of the mannequins we work on for other things like bathing & grooming techniques and catheter care. FYI there are 12 mannequins in 12 beds, 6 on each side of the room. When we learned other stuff like transferring from bed to wheelchair and back again, changing bed linens and whatnot we took the mannequins out of the beds, sat them in chairs at the back of the class and took turns being in the beds. This one is not wearing a wig.
A close-up of one that has a wig:
They are hermaphrodites. Their genitalia are removable in order to switch between male & female. Naturally, as soon as everyone heard that last week we they had to see for ourselves themselves. Only a couple of them had a tracheotomy, most of them have one dilated pupil & one contracted pupil.