I Just Didn’t…

Clinical this past Sunday was a little more interesting than last week—but not much. I did a newborn assessment, and charted a little in the paper and computer charts. Oh, and I got to help make a couple of beds—exciting stuff for a student nurse thirsty for hands-on patient care right? I did not get to do a postpartum assessment on mom (her regular nurse completed it when I whisked the baby off to the nursery). I did not get to see a birth (vaginal nor c-section). I did not get to pass meds. I did not pass go and I did not collect $200.

It was a little strange at first handling “normal” newborns. I’m used to my NICU babies who have various catheters and such attached to them; these babies were so….free—bundled up like little burritos. Mom was still kind of out of it and preferred that I fed her daughter so I did. It just felt weird being able to scoop up the little peanut from her bassinet and stroll over to the rocking chair with no IV poles or monitors to navigate around. Sitting there with that 7lb bundle of joy made me think back to when my own children were that small (and before they learned to say words such as “no” and “mine”). My lecture instructor said in class that someone always gets pregnant during this rotation—uh, no thanks, I’m retired from that line of work. I already have three strikes, so I’m out of that game.

Sadly, most of the nurses weren’t any better (read: nicer) than the ones we had last semester. I thought (or hoped) that since these nurses cared for hormonal women and babies their demeanor would be a little more accommodating—guess not. No one was outright hostile like my dear Nurse Nasty from last semester, but they did tend to make you feel like some colossal inconvenience. I still don’t quite get that whole “nurses eat their young” thing…

No clinical next weekend since it falls on Easter. Good thing too since I could really use a solid weekend to catch up on some much-needed reading.

Zzzz…

Our first day in Maternity/OB clinical was pretty uneventful–almost downright boring. Part of the problem is that we have clinicals on the weekend. C-sections and inductions are not typically scheduled for weekends. So we are basically just sitting around waiting for someone to spontaneously go into labor (and with all the planned C-sections these days I’m not sure if people still do that…). There was a single postpartum mom on the entire unit. The clinical instructors had to go “find” a baby so that they could show us how to do a newborn assessment. I will admit technically it was just our hospital orientation day (which translates into boring computer training on yet another EHR system), but I was all ready to palpate some funduses (fundi?) or something. I also heard that we’re not even going to be giving meds which leaves not much else to do than a lot of patient teaching–if there’s anyone there to teach…

So although many of my fellow students are still excited about this rotation since some would like to work in maternity, I can already see it’s not my cup of tea. I need more “action”–like in an intensive care or ED environment (but real emergencies–not “my baby has hiccups”). Not that I thrive off of dire emergencies or people being critically ill/injured but when you’ll be working 12-hour shifts I’d like to be doing a little more than reading the tabloids at the nurse’s station (don’t act like you haven’t seen it). Who really cares how Kendra Wilkinson lost 10 lbs in 10 days?–she probably ran 5 miles a day on a strict diet of romaine lettuce…

Of course now I’ve totally jinxed myself and this weekend it will be on and popping (hopefully)…