MH Blog due: 1/29

Learning Report

1. The nurse I followed was responsible for one patient and to make sure was not having a reaction to the blood. She also began to prep the patient for surgery.

2. I learned that patient identification is exaggerated in the hospital.  

3. The best thing that happen was getting to see a nurse check on a patient who was getting a blood transfusion.

4. The worst thing that happen was just he waiting around for something to happen or having to fell unwanted and annoying to the staff for asking if I could shadow them.

5. The “worst” was not a mistake.

6. Bad, the staff didn’t want to teach and I had to struggle to get the opportunity to watch someone take vital signs which is still boring.

Experience Record

1. I observed a nurse give a blood transfusion to a patient who was about to go into surgery. In order to do this she had to scan the wristband to get into the computer to insure patient identification.

2. I came a little late, but the patient was diagnosed with a ruptured/rupturing uterus. She had profuse bleeding and was in need of surgery to remove her entire uterus.

3.  She was given a blood transfusion due to the excessive amount of blood lost. The nurse had to check on the patient after 15 minutes to make sure the blood does not have complications.  Everything was working fine so she increased the rate of transfusion.

4. I observed a women who was in a lot of pain due to her uterus rupturing. Her doctors wanted to get the entire uterus removed as soon as possible.

5.  Endoscopy means looking inside the body for medical reasons using an endoscope, an instrument used to examine the interior of an organ or cavity of the body. Anesthesia is an insensitivity to pain induced by the administration of gases or the injection of drugs before surgical operations.

Experience Journal

I.                    My first impression was they are too busy to teach me. The first thing she did was give me a giant binder on endoscopy. I was full of brochures and pictures only 10 percent was interesting. I saw a new technology of having to scan the wristband of a patient in need of blood. The nurses were charting on the COW (computers on wheels) after giving care to each patient.

II.                  The nurse I followed took vital signs several times before and after the blood transfusion. She did this in the case of her body rejecting the blood the nurse could see her vital signs getting worse. She also made sure to clean the thermometer and disposed of the soiled clothes the patient bleed on. I also got to see a young patient get emitted, however the family spoke Spanish. Luckily there was a nurse that spoke Spanish and was able to communicate with the family.

III.                I learned that patient identification is a very important in the health care field. I observed the staff checking wrist bands and asking for verbal certification. I didn’t hear a lot of medical terminology but I did hear terms like endoscopy and anesthesia. I did read a lot on the endoscopy and saw an x-ray of a foreign object and pictures from the endoscopy of that object in the patients body.

IV.                I felt I had to fight to get to see something I’ve seen already, but it was at least better than reading about endoscopy. I realized that I do not want to go into the day surgical unit. It has no interesting features that would make me want to continue in this felid. The staff seems to treat me as a nuisance getting in the way of doing their job.