More Orientation
Originally published at Road Nurse. Please leave any comments there.
Had a mixed day today, with half of the day spent doing visits and half in the classroom. We started off early this morning (7am, new preceptor) with 12 flights of steps to go up. Yikes-I was half dead by the 10th floor. Rock climbing is not so good for cardiac endurance. Next time should be easier. The second and third patient weren’t too remarkable-a hickman blood draw and a general nursing visit.
The afternoon started off a bit slower, with someone reading us slides on SBAR reporting, then a chat regarding the private pay aide service we run. After that we moved into the diabetes education, which I was thinking would be dull-3 hours on a topic I feel I know pretty well. However, once we got into it I found myself quite interested. The CDE was very knowledgable, and though I knew about half of what we talked about, the other half was new to me. Example: alcohol is a hypoglycemic agent, because when the body runs out of sugar, usually the liver will take over and push some glucose out. However, when you’re drinking, the liver is processing the alcohol, and apparently it can only do one thing at a time(single minded liver). So, hypoglycemia! Also learned how to use an insulin pen, which I’ve always wanted to do.
After the talk on diabetes, I went out with the CDE to a patient’s house where she had scheduled some diabetic teaching to do. There, we met with an older gentleman who, though fairly knowledgable about his diabetes, was still having some new troubles with high blood sugars and a skin infection that wasn’t clearing up. Chatted with him for about an hour, left the house with a new plan of care and some numbers-I now know who to call for education, that’s for sure.
10 hour day today-100 miles put on between two cars, and I only saw 4 patients! Hopefully a shorted day tomorrow. Classroom training all day.