First Medical Surgical Clinical

    Going into my medical surgical clinical, I may have been more nervous for this clinical than my pediatrics clinical. Though I have always been unsure of kids. I am even more unsure of elderly adults. When I found out my medical surgical clinical would be in a nursing home with elderly women with end stages of dementia, or schizophrenia or other psychological illnesses, I was terrified to say the least. 

    However, after completing my first day of clinical, I do not feel anywhere near as bad about the experience ahead of me. Though I am nervous to adjust to a facility like this. I anticipate learning a lot from this clinical. This facility still uses paper charts, and no electronic health records. There is one computer for the unit and all of the charts are just kept behind the nurses station in binders on a shelf. The sitting room for patients has an extremely old TV looking like it dated back a long time. It also seemed that there was not really much activity or things to be held for patients to do. 

    On my first day I was able to give medications. I gave them orally, as well as crushed in some of the patient's pudding, and administered eye drops to the patient. I helped ambulate the patient from wheelchair to bed, from wheelchair to sitting room chair, so on and so forth. I was able to attend physical therapy with my patient and help them learn and practice some exercises that will potentially help them be able to ambulate independently. 

    Overall, my first day did come with some challenges and things to continue to learn and grow from, but I believe that this clinical will give me the opportunity to really learn bed side nursing, how to communicate with a patient and hone in on the basic skills and perfecting them.