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Nursing School week 2/#8
Mar. 24th, 2012 01:12 amOops...sorry I didn't post about the week before Spring Break until now!
It was a pretty quiet week, actually--we didn't have clinical, which freed up a lot of time on Tuesday and Wednesday for me! I did have to come in for a short while to get evaluated by my instructor, but that was it! I actually made pretty good use of the time on Tuesday and Wednesday--finished our tax returns, took an exam online for Nutrition, and wrote the first draft of a paper that was due the 2nd day after we returned from break. The paper is about a health organization in the community that offers patient education--I wrote mine on the local Hospice chapter. Patient-education is a big focus of this class (moreso than last semester) because it's one of the main duties of a nurse (for example, when discharging a patient from the hospital, it's the nurse who teaches the patient how to take care of a wound, or when to take their meds, etc...)
In Theory, we learned about Peripheral Artery Disease, Aortic Aneurysms, and Deep Vein Thromboses (clots). In Lab, we learned how to insert a Foley urinary catheter--it has a balloon built into the outside of the drainage tube; inflating the balloon keeps the catheter in the bladder. This is a sterile procedure, and it's our last skill validation for the semester!
On Friday, I had a midterm in my Therapeutic Communications class--I don't think I've talked a lot about this class yet, but the idea behind it is to teach us ways of talking with a patient that are specifically focused on helping the patient explore their thoughts/feelings about a matter, and then letting the patient come up with some solutions. This is different than almost everything else we're learning (such as teaching the patient how/why/when to do something, or advising the patient that managing their high blood sugar will also help lower their high blood pressure.) It's all about asking open-ended questions ("How did you feel about...?") and never actually *answering* the patient's questions. For example, a patient who may need to go to a nursing home but doesn't want to might say to the nurse "what do *you* think I should do?" The nurse, using Therapeutic Communication techniques, might say "How does the thought of a nursing home make you feel?" The patient might say "Lonely--I won't know anyone there." The nurse could say "what do you think you could do to be less lonely if you went to the nursing home?" (Instead of the "easy" answers of "I'm sure you'll meet some nice folks there!" or "You won't be too far away--all your old friends will come and visit!"....the focus is on getting the patient to come up with solutions for their own problems.) As one classmate of mine said "I feel like if I just choose the corniest answer, I'll be correct." He's kind of right, but I see the point of the technique...
After Friday's final class, I think we were all ready for Spring Break! More on that later--bedtime for me now!
It was a pretty quiet week, actually--we didn't have clinical, which freed up a lot of time on Tuesday and Wednesday for me! I did have to come in for a short while to get evaluated by my instructor, but that was it! I actually made pretty good use of the time on Tuesday and Wednesday--finished our tax returns, took an exam online for Nutrition, and wrote the first draft of a paper that was due the 2nd day after we returned from break. The paper is about a health organization in the community that offers patient education--I wrote mine on the local Hospice chapter. Patient-education is a big focus of this class (moreso than last semester) because it's one of the main duties of a nurse (for example, when discharging a patient from the hospital, it's the nurse who teaches the patient how to take care of a wound, or when to take their meds, etc...)
In Theory, we learned about Peripheral Artery Disease, Aortic Aneurysms, and Deep Vein Thromboses (clots). In Lab, we learned how to insert a Foley urinary catheter--it has a balloon built into the outside of the drainage tube; inflating the balloon keeps the catheter in the bladder. This is a sterile procedure, and it's our last skill validation for the semester!
On Friday, I had a midterm in my Therapeutic Communications class--I don't think I've talked a lot about this class yet, but the idea behind it is to teach us ways of talking with a patient that are specifically focused on helping the patient explore their thoughts/feelings about a matter, and then letting the patient come up with some solutions. This is different than almost everything else we're learning (such as teaching the patient how/why/when to do something, or advising the patient that managing their high blood sugar will also help lower their high blood pressure.) It's all about asking open-ended questions ("How did you feel about...?") and never actually *answering* the patient's questions. For example, a patient who may need to go to a nursing home but doesn't want to might say to the nurse "what do *you* think I should do?" The nurse, using Therapeutic Communication techniques, might say "How does the thought of a nursing home make you feel?" The patient might say "Lonely--I won't know anyone there." The nurse could say "what do you think you could do to be less lonely if you went to the nursing home?" (Instead of the "easy" answers of "I'm sure you'll meet some nice folks there!" or "You won't be too far away--all your old friends will come and visit!"....the focus is on getting the patient to come up with solutions for their own problems.) As one classmate of mine said "I feel like if I just choose the corniest answer, I'll be correct." He's kind of right, but I see the point of the technique...
After Friday's final class, I think we were all ready for Spring Break! More on that later--bedtime for me now!
