A Day in the Life of a Nurse

Hi Bloggers,

I've been volunteering at the San Ramon Regional Hospital for about two months now. I volunteer every Wednesday from 3:30-6, so  2.5 hours a week. Spending almost three hours a week allows me to be exposed to a very different environment. For one, instead of saying mentor, the correct terminology to describe someone you're shadowing is "preceptor". My preceptor's name is Julie, and she's the head charge nurse. This means she's manages all the other nurses during her shift. We both sit in the nurse's station on the second floor, in post op, or post operation meaning we receive patients who have just been through surgery. 

My day starts off with counting narcotics. We go into this small closet where there is this machine that is basically a vending machine for medicine. It is extremely secure, so it takes a thumb print before one can even access any medication. There are about 5 different drawers of medication, ranging from 2 to 30 different compartments in each drawer. We count every type of medication and put it in the machine. This is done before every shift in order to check that no one is secretly stealing any medication.

Next, at 4 o'clock, we go downstairs to partake in something called a bed meeting. This is when different departments in the hospital (pre op, emergency, etc) meet and talk about who is in each of the rooms and how many people do they have in the rooms in total. It is very interesting hearing them talk about "floating" people over (having someone work in a different department in case there are too many people in beds) or having a "super user" (someone who has passwords and codes to everything to help out other nurses). It took a while to get used to the terminology they use, but once you catch on, its like putting a puzzle together. Everything begins to make sense.

After the bed meeting, Julie and I go back to the nursing station where I proceed to answer phone calls from patients for the next hour and a half or so. The patients are able to call me and ask for help. The most common things they need are IV bag changes, pain medication, or having questions for their nurses. I page RNs (registered nurses) and  CNAs (certified nursing assistants) if they are needed at the station or at their patient's room. 

There are many positives and negatives I have noticed about working in the medical field, especially as a nurse. For one, it can be incredibly traumatizing being in close vicinity to death. Once while working, a patient passed away, with his/her family in the same room. The family knew it was expected, yet when it happened, they walked out of the room bawling. Seeing this on a weekly basis, or even more, can begin to make you weary. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I've seen many patients get discharged with huge smiles on their faces. I can see that they are very thankful for the care they received at the hospital. 

I've learned many things while volunteering. I am very quick on picking up new things. For example, it took me about two weeks to understand what the was being said in the bed meetings. The technology is very different in hospitals as well. They don't use "normal" computers, instead, the computers are more high tech and hard to use. I figured out how to use the computers there in less than a day.

In terms of what I've learned in the medical field, I've learned quite a lot. I see nurses run back and forth to their 5 or so different patients, trying to comfort them as best as possible, and yet they keep a positive attitude. It made me realize that if you want to be a nurse, you have to be willing to not only put in the hard work (with sometimes no reward if the patient isn't thankful or does not make it out of the hospital) but also be incredibly positive as well. In addition, the positivity makes a great difference in the patient's moods. 

For time management, I need to work on organizing my day a little bit better. I need to make sure that I don't get senioritis and actually complete my assignments before the due date. I can already see my grades slipping a little bit