Technology in Nursing

Post #10

The technology in nursing amazes me. There is so much technology involved in nursing care now that at times it seems like there is less hands-on care than there should be. From things such as IV pumps, electronic charting, administering meds by using scanning machines, even the Pyxis that stores the medications, all of these forms of technology are important to nursing now. A nurse has to learn how to use different types of technology, not just how to take care of the anatomy and physiology of the patient if they want to be a competent nurse. Being in clinicals and having to learn to use the different types of technology to be able to care for the patient is almost more difficult for me than actually caring for the patient. I have to think that much harder in order to make sure I am documenting correctly and giving meds in the correct steps that the computer system requires.

It worries me at times that there may come a day when the physical presence of a nurse will no longer be needed in some settings. In “A History of American Nursing: Trends and Eras” by Judd, Sitzman, and Davis, it says on page 223 that “if robotics progress, the nurse might or might not be present with a patient. . . . Doctors and specialists can render care remotely as the patient is managed through monitoring devices that allow for care options based on technical information and orders from wherever the doctor might be” ( 2010). Giving care through the form of robotics does not interest me at all. Nursing is about compassionately caring for the whole person. How can a robot care for a patient’s spiritual and emotional needs? I enjoy the hands-on work of being a nurse. If I have to sit at a computer and direct a robot to give medications for me or take vital signs, let alone any of the other more complex procedures that nurses do for patients, I will not enjoy nursing any longer. I want to be able to go into a patient’s room and talk to them in person, physically touch them with my hands and not direct a machine to do it for me. I hope that we do not live to see the day when a machine will do all the work for us as nurses. I do think there is a place for technology in the medical field, particularly in surgery. But basic bedside nursing care does not need robotics to make it what it is.

Acute Care

Post #9

This week was our first week of actually taking care of a patient at Providence Everett Medical Center. Last week we shadowed the first day and then cared for a patient on the friday, but it wasn't quite the same as this week. Going into acute care for the first time, I really had no idea what to expect. I was nervous and very unsure of myself. On thursday, I still did not know exactly what was required of me for documenting, or even for caring for the patient, so I did not do all of the documenting exactly as it should have been. Luckily, my nurse was very nice and explained to me what to do. Friday I made sure I documented every hour that I went in and checked on the patient and totaled all her I & O's as they happened. Even though I was doing all that was required of me with taking care of my patient and documenting, I still had a lot of down time with nothing to do. My nurse had another student nurse from Everett Community College with her as well so there wasn't much going on that I could watch or help with. I used part of this down time to look at my drug book and go over all my paperwork again so that I understood the drugs my patient was receiving and why she was getting them. I was very excited that I got to give a heparin injection on both thursday and friday! I have been wanting to give injections on patients for a while and it's not as scary as I thought it would be.

There are a lot of things I need to work on over these months of clinicals in acute care. I feel inadequate and that I don't know enough to be able to care for my patient properly. I don't know anything about IV's so the machine causes me to get a bit nervous sometimes. I'm looking forward to the day when I can actually take care of a patient and feel confident in myself and my abilities, as well as to make the connections between what I've learned in class and actually seeing it in the clinical setting. I will continue to make progress as I gain more experience, and I'm eagerly waiting for the day when I can say I understand how to take care of most med-surg patients because I've had the experience.

Third Week of Clinicals

Post #6

It seems so strange that next week is our last time to be at CRISTA. I have grown to like being there over the last couple of weeks. Even though I wouldn't want to work there, I really like the environment that they have created for the residents. They try to provide them with activities throughout the day that they can attend, and they have exercise times for those who are able to move at least a little bit in their wheelchairs.

This week was not very eventful compared to weeks past. I practiced doing the head-to-toe physical assessment on my resident again and then checked out on it on friday. I wasn't too worried about it because I have been practicing this for two weeks now on both thursdays and fridays. My resident is so pleasant and helpful that I could probably do the assessment for an hour and she wouldn't mind. But it doesn't take me that long, so that's good! Because my resident has edema in her legs and feet, I'm not able to feel her DP and PT pulses. I was able to use a doppler instead to hear the pulses. That was pretty cool. This week I have overheard a couple of the CNA's say that we as students are very helpful to them. The first week or so, I could tell that they probably would have preferred if we weren't there because we were more in the way than anything else. Now that we know how to care for our residents, the CNA's have less stress in the mornings. They ask us to take vital signs because they think we are better at doing it than them. It's nice to feel like we are helpful to these people and that they actually want us there. In some ways, I feel sorry to leave CRISTA because I have gotten used to the routine of the day there. However, at the same time, I am very excited to actually go to the hospital where we will get to work with acute care patients instead of long term patients.

Second Week of Clinicals

Post #5

This second week of clinicals was much better than the first week. It was decided on thursday that my resident was too independent and would only get confused if I was trying to help her all day long, so I was given a new resident. This was alright by me because I had thought to myself that having a very independent resident would only cause problems. I did have to fill out all the paperwork again, which took a few extra hours of work, but it was good practice for when we will be having to do that every week starting next month.

On thursday I did not do much of the actual care for my new resident because I hadn't watched the CNA's do it the week before. However, today (friday) I did do most of the care for her. She is a very sweet woman who is so willing to have me practice all my assessments on her whenever I want. I could not have asked for a better resident. My outlook on this clinical rotation has greatly improved since last week because of my new resident. I thank God for knowing that I needed a little help in this area to be able to appreciate my clinical experience a little more.

I really enjoyed doing the physical assessment on my resident today. It's nice to actually be doing hands-on work that I will be getting to do on a regular basis once I become a nurse. This is the kind of nursing care that I enjoy. Although giving peri care and dressing a patient every day is hands-on, it is not the kind of work that I would want to do on a daily basis. Physically assessing and treating a patient for whatever ails them is what I enjoy the most. I am looking forward to our next rotation when we will be doing acute care in the hospital.

Being at the long term care facility has given me a new respect for CNA's. Their work takes a lot of energy and is stressful on many levels. Most of them are so willing to help the residents in whatever they need, whether it's having their bottoms wiped in the bathroom or by spoon feeding them their meals. I know that for myself, I would not be able to find this work rewarding day after day. I would know I was helping these people in a physical way that they appreciated, but I would have to work hard to convince myself that I was doing something that I loved for a job. These men and women that do this day after day should be given a lot more credit for what they do because they are doing so much physical, dirty work that many people would not be willing to do, even for their loved ones. My respect and admiration for CNA's that do this job willingly has greatly increased as I have watched them over the past two weeks. I hope that in my nursing career in the future that I will be able to remember to appreciate the work of the nurses' aides and nurse techs that do all the dirty work for me in the hospital. I don't want to forget that they are doing the basic care that is so essential in many ways, and they should be appreciated and respected for everything that they do.

"Student in Crisis: How Two Educators Cared"

Post #3

Today in my class, Integration of Faith, we were asked to find an article that was interesting to us in the "Journal of Christian Nursing." I found this article about an adult nursing student who, eight weeks before her graduation from nursing school, found out that she had breast cancer. As a nursing student, you are very busy going to clinicals and studying for classes. Having to go through chemotherapy and keep up with the huge workload would be extremely difficult for anyone. However, this nursing student did manage to keep up with everything for the last two months, with some help from her professors. She attributed her success to the "grace of God." The interesting thing about this article was that the nursing student was planning on working in an oncology unit when she became a nurse. As a person who has experienced cancer and the chemotherapy and treatment that goes along with it, she can now relate to her patients that also have cancer. As nurses, one of the best ways to communicate is by empathizing with our patients. Because of this nursing student's own struggle with cancer, she will now be able to empathize and relate to her patients that she takes care of in the cancer unit that she works in.

This article reminded me again that some of the best nurses are the ones that have gone through similar experiences that their patients have. They don't have to sympathize and fight the urge to pity their patients; instead, they can tell them that they fully understand what they are going through because they have gone through the same experience. As a nurse in training, this is a good reminder to me that it is ok to go through some difficult times in life because they may one day be those experiences that I can look back on and recall in order to be able to fully empathize with a patient that is going through a similar experience.

First Week of Clinicals

Post #2

My first week of clinicals was not exactly what I was expecting. In many ways, I thought it would be harder. I had assumed that beginning on the first day that I would be required to actually start taking care of my resident. This wasn't the case. Instead, we sat and listened to a lecture for almost 5 hours and then went on a tour of the facility. After that, I met my resident and talked to her for only a few minutes before she said she would see me later because she was going to lunch. She is very independent and does not need that much help from other people to take care of herself. This should make the next few weeks interesting because I'm supposed to be giving her care throughout most of the day. After meeting my resident, I basically observed the other residents and stood around a bit, not really sure what to do.

The second day, friday, was better because I actually got to see firsthand the type of care that I'll be giving my resident. I got to shadow one of the NAC's (or CNA's) at CRISTA and see what their everyday routine is like. The only thing I actually ended up helping with was taking the vital signs of two residents that were falling asleep in their wheelchairs before lunch. After the experience on friday, it made me realize that I don't want to work in a nursing home when I become a nurse. Their work is very stressful because they're taking care of about 8 residents that all need help going to the bathroom and getting out of bed in the morning. This takes almost 2 hours to get everybody out of bed. Doing transfers and peri care for the majority of the day is not what I want to be doing as a nurse. Yes, the care is very hands-on (which I enjoy) and needed for those older adults, but I feel that my calling is to help take care of younger generations rather than those that are in nursing homes and long term care facilities. I will do my best in the next few weeks to learn as much as I can from everyone at CRISTA so that I can say that, even if I didn't enjoy my time there as much as I would have liked, I still took every advantage to learn how to become a better Christian nurse and provide the best care possible.