The mindless ramblings of a nurse
I know I wrote on and off about my not-so-secret nursing career. Everything from the days in nursing school to job hunting to eventually finding a job, only to have go to right back to school for that job, onto actually working and eventually into working on my own. It's been an interesting journey for someone fresh out of school to go so deep into the scarier places of the hospital, the sickest of the sick, the place where life often hangs in the balance and what may seem to start off as an uneventful shift can turn into a s**t storm fairly quickly. (I also have to apologize for my language, nurses' language is far more profane than what you would normally hear)
For some reason, my mom has always wanted me to write some sort of journal chronicling my nursing career and I've always been a little hesitant, mainly because I always wonder, who wants to read what I have to write? I have terrible grammar and my spelling sucks. I studied science in university and couldn't write an essay to save my life, so what says I'll figure out how to write all of a sudden just because I spend 30+ hours working every week?
Anyways, since then I've realized that someone out there may be interested in the mindless ramblings, find them interesting and maybe even get them to look into joining the forces of nurses that work in intensive care. So this is my journey.
My journey of nursing begins at Mackenzie Health, Richmond Hill (formerly York Central Hospital) almost exactly 2 years ago, January 2012. Hired straight on into the intensive care unit right after graduating from nursing school in November 2011. At that time, I really didn't have any expectations on what my job would be other than being eternally grateful that I even FOUND a job. Sure, ICU sounds like a super intimidating place, and I wouldn't doubt that. I remember during nursing school thinking that I may one day join the ER or ICU, a place where all the action always seemed to be. I don't consider myself an adrenaline junkie but after having done my share of time on a medical unit I just didn't find the flow or the work all that fulfilling or even interesting, so I always remembered thinking that I'll work my time on a medical or surgical unit and then work my way into the "higher areas that probably need more experience before you get in". I never actually imagined starting in the ICU straight out of school because I never thought that it was actually somewhere you could start from. Yet low and behold, I start off in one of the most "intensive" (no pun intended) places in the hospital and it only just hit me now that it's a huge leap of faith for my manager at the time and educator to want to hire someone without any experience into such an environment.
Anyways, the hospital sends me back to school for 3 months at the start to start my critical care nursing certificate at Humber College so I would have the basics of critical care nursing. I won't go into the details of that because, well, it's just school. It's homework and studying and presentations and more studying. The only amusing thing that I remember clearly was my instructor wanting to speak to me in private just over two weeks into the course, right after the anatomy and physiology quiz/test. Instinctively, an instructor that wants to speak to you in private is NEVER a good thing so I went on to spend the next 20 minutes sweating it out in my seat as she continued to teach. At this point, I can't even remember what she was teaching because I was thinking of all the possible things that could go wrong. Did the hospital fire me? Did I do something terribly wrong on the test? Did I fail the program already? And the endless stream of questions continued until the instructor called for a coffee break. Knowing that this was my opportunity, I went up to speak to her. All she does was show me a grade out of 57 and in my haze of fear, a 54/57 didn't make any sense to me at all. I didn't know what she meant by that number. It was only until she explained that it was my grade from the A&P test that I finally realized that I didn't fail but rather she wanted to let me know that I had scored a near-perfect on the test. It would be another month before she finally figured out WHY I could pull off such a high mark on what was considered the hardest part of the course, because I had just recently graduated from nursing school and just studied for the CRNE, which means all this anatomy and physiology stuff is still fairly fresh in my memory. Oh, and because I did another degree in human biology before that. That was honestly the only thing I remember from that program, that and how much I still suck at interpreting ECGs.
Throughout the program we had "clinical hours" (yes, we're back to this again) that we had to complete at the hospital. Before all that, we had a one-day orientation day to the unit and the technology that we would have to use like our monitors, our IV pumps etc. As part of that, we got to spend a little time in a patient's room to see all the stuff in action. Near the end of that day we were gathered around the middle of the unit and I distinctly remember a patient with a very high heart rate and a lot of people moving in and out of that room. The blue cart was wheeled to the front of that room (which I now know is the crash cart) and the doctor (who didn't look the least bit like a doctor) spoke the patient from the door. And then there was a fury of action, the cart was used, they "shocked" the patient and then they all left and all of this happened in the span of maybe 7-10 minutes. The worst part of this is I don't remember much other than thinking, "wow, the nurse has a really weird name!" (Her name is odd but I won't mention it) and wow, that doctor is really hot! Tells you a little bit about how strange and overwhelming that whole experience was. Thankfully, that doctor is really REALLY hot, and I don't feel bad for admitting what is common knowledge among the nurses. So common that even one of the other ICU doctors, we'll call him Dr. G, commented on how all the nurses seem to swoon over this one particular doctor when he walks in the room but not when Dr. G walks in the room. Sad part was that my first day on the unit was this doctor's last, he now works in the ICU of a hospital in Brampton. That thwarts my chances with him
I think I've written enough so far. Next time: my first ACTUAL clinical day.
For some reason, my mom has always wanted me to write some sort of journal chronicling my nursing career and I've always been a little hesitant, mainly because I always wonder, who wants to read what I have to write? I have terrible grammar and my spelling sucks. I studied science in university and couldn't write an essay to save my life, so what says I'll figure out how to write all of a sudden just because I spend 30+ hours working every week?
Anyways, since then I've realized that someone out there may be interested in the mindless ramblings, find them interesting and maybe even get them to look into joining the forces of nurses that work in intensive care. So this is my journey.
My journey of nursing begins at Mackenzie Health, Richmond Hill (formerly York Central Hospital) almost exactly 2 years ago, January 2012. Hired straight on into the intensive care unit right after graduating from nursing school in November 2011. At that time, I really didn't have any expectations on what my job would be other than being eternally grateful that I even FOUND a job. Sure, ICU sounds like a super intimidating place, and I wouldn't doubt that. I remember during nursing school thinking that I may one day join the ER or ICU, a place where all the action always seemed to be. I don't consider myself an adrenaline junkie but after having done my share of time on a medical unit I just didn't find the flow or the work all that fulfilling or even interesting, so I always remembered thinking that I'll work my time on a medical or surgical unit and then work my way into the "higher areas that probably need more experience before you get in". I never actually imagined starting in the ICU straight out of school because I never thought that it was actually somewhere you could start from. Yet low and behold, I start off in one of the most "intensive" (no pun intended) places in the hospital and it only just hit me now that it's a huge leap of faith for my manager at the time and educator to want to hire someone without any experience into such an environment.
Anyways, the hospital sends me back to school for 3 months at the start to start my critical care nursing certificate at Humber College so I would have the basics of critical care nursing. I won't go into the details of that because, well, it's just school. It's homework and studying and presentations and more studying. The only amusing thing that I remember clearly was my instructor wanting to speak to me in private just over two weeks into the course, right after the anatomy and physiology quiz/test. Instinctively, an instructor that wants to speak to you in private is NEVER a good thing so I went on to spend the next 20 minutes sweating it out in my seat as she continued to teach. At this point, I can't even remember what she was teaching because I was thinking of all the possible things that could go wrong. Did the hospital fire me? Did I do something terribly wrong on the test? Did I fail the program already? And the endless stream of questions continued until the instructor called for a coffee break. Knowing that this was my opportunity, I went up to speak to her. All she does was show me a grade out of 57 and in my haze of fear, a 54/57 didn't make any sense to me at all. I didn't know what she meant by that number. It was only until she explained that it was my grade from the A&P test that I finally realized that I didn't fail but rather she wanted to let me know that I had scored a near-perfect on the test. It would be another month before she finally figured out WHY I could pull off such a high mark on what was considered the hardest part of the course, because I had just recently graduated from nursing school and just studied for the CRNE, which means all this anatomy and physiology stuff is still fairly fresh in my memory. Oh, and because I did another degree in human biology before that. That was honestly the only thing I remember from that program, that and how much I still suck at interpreting ECGs.
Throughout the program we had "clinical hours" (yes, we're back to this again) that we had to complete at the hospital. Before all that, we had a one-day orientation day to the unit and the technology that we would have to use like our monitors, our IV pumps etc. As part of that, we got to spend a little time in a patient's room to see all the stuff in action. Near the end of that day we were gathered around the middle of the unit and I distinctly remember a patient with a very high heart rate and a lot of people moving in and out of that room. The blue cart was wheeled to the front of that room (which I now know is the crash cart) and the doctor (who didn't look the least bit like a doctor) spoke the patient from the door. And then there was a fury of action, the cart was used, they "shocked" the patient and then they all left and all of this happened in the span of maybe 7-10 minutes. The worst part of this is I don't remember much other than thinking, "wow, the nurse has a really weird name!" (Her name is odd but I won't mention it) and wow, that doctor is really hot! Tells you a little bit about how strange and overwhelming that whole experience was. Thankfully, that doctor is really REALLY hot, and I don't feel bad for admitting what is common knowledge among the nurses. So common that even one of the other ICU doctors, we'll call him Dr. G, commented on how all the nurses seem to swoon over this one particular doctor when he walks in the room but not when Dr. G walks in the room. Sad part was that my first day on the unit was this doctor's last, he now works in the ICU of a hospital in Brampton. That thwarts my chances with him
I think I've written enough so far. Next time: my first ACTUAL clinical day.