Hospital Day #1

You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors
It's the morning of your very first day
And you say hi to your friends you ain't seen in a while
Try and stay out of everybody's way

Who would have thought that the opening lines of Taylor Swift’s song, “Fifteen” would actually be an almost perfect fit for my first day at the hospital as a student nurse. I did see my fellow student nurses in class yesterday, and you need to add ten years to fifteen…but you get the picture.

As I drive down the freeway, Justin’s directions run through my head – I take a few deep breaths, followed by “I can do this…I can really do this! This is what I’ve wanted for so long and I’ve actually made it!” I still end up in the parking lot of a gym, but I am running early for once in my life, so I’m not bothered by the fact that I was burning a few minutes.

As I’m turning left in the hospital parking lot, I realize that I am following one of my classmates. What a huge relief to see another fellow marshmallow! (At least that’s what I feel like in my all white scrubs!) We somehow make it to the cafeteria – where we were early for our first meeting. After a few hours of paperwork and discussing why we actually want to be nurses, including how we felt about our first day, we go on the tour of the hospital. We all giggle as a patient made cattle noises when we walked by. Seriously, we were a herd of student nurses in white scrubs.

My group is the last group to get “dropped off” at our floor. Our instructor shares a laugh with an RN and then assigns me to her. She doesn’t seem too opposed to be taking a student under her wing for the day (or so I like to think.) We are introduced to two other RNs who will be supervising two of my classmates on the floor. We meet the charge nurse, who is surprisingly very helpful and welcoming. As soon as introductions are made, we shyly smile and rush off to do our scavenger hunt. We start the morning having absolutely no idea where anything is.

“Where is the supply room?” “I don’t know – I haven’t seen it.” Within thirty minutes, we have the codes to the supply rooms, as well as to the medication room, and have an RN who is helping us “cheat.” We have already asked questions that stumped at least one RN and the charge nurse. He seems proud when he tells us that the water main shut off is done by the engineer and that the valves are in the ceiling. (He didn’t know this information previously and we were a little shocked that he followed up on his promise to find out for us.)

We rush to finish the “treasure hunt” before lunch and before we can no longer ignore our grumbling bellies. Lunch is amazing – for $5 I get a HUGE serving of beef stir fry and a Diet Coke. I announce how it’s enough food to bring leftovers home for dinner & then promptly scarf it all down.

As we head back up to the floor to pick our patients for tomorrow’s assessments – I am giddy with excitement. I think to myself, “I wonder who my nurse is going to pick for me.” She says that she’s going to give me an “easy” patient for my first day. While some of my friends get multi-trauma accident victims, patients with MRSA – my patient has her gallbladder removed. I breathe a sigh of relief! Then, I find out that my patient is sleeping, so I need to follow my nurse to another patient’s room. She rattles off a bunch of diagnoses – I nod my head and utter “uh huh.” In reality, I have no idea what she’s talking about – I can pick up a few words here and there, but still have no idea what was wrong with the guy. I follow her to give a blood transfusion. “Awesome! I get to see something cool.” To my complete embarrassment, she tells me to take his vital signs. “Oh my gosh – I thought that I was just watching…I’m so not ready for this!” I say, “Okay” and rush off to find the vital sign machine. I ask where the patient’s disposable blood pressure cuff is. “Right there…next time, look around and you will probably find what you are looking for.” She’s not being rude, just straightforward. I feel my face turning bright red and my palms start to get a little sweaty. I go to put the cuff on his arm and his arm doesn’t move. “C’mon guy, help me out a little bit here…I’ve got 3 people watching me!” I struggle a little to put the cuff on his arm and turn the machine on. I can hear the Velcro starting to separate. “Please stay on, please stay on” I pray silently. “We need his temperature too, before we can start transfusing.” Shoot, I knew that I was forgetting something! “Oh, okay, sir, please lift your tongue – I’m going to take your temperature.” I vaguely remember her introducing me to him and explaining what I’m doing. Another thing that I forget to do. She reads the blood pressure and temperature off the machine. I’m standing there holding the thermometer thinking “What do I do now?” I turn off the machine, before the nurse gets his pulse. “Good job, Amanda! Way to screw up again.” She turns the machine back on – I’m still holding the thermometer. She takes it from my hand and tries to put it back in the appropriate holder. It won’t fit. She realizes that I didn’t dispose of the cover and has to pull the cover out of the machine with her forceps. She throws the used cover into the little trash bag attached the machine. “Oh! That’s what that’s for.” The nurse takes the patient’s pulse. I look for a sign of encouragement from my friend, standing there, observing. She smiles at me like it could have happened to anyone. Later, she confides that she didn’t realize that the makeshift trash bag was attached to the machine either.

I must have looked like I was going to cry. As we walk out of the patient’s room, my nurse tells me that we will be taking the patient’s vitals again in fifteen minutes. She squeezes my shoulder, “Good job in there. Just keep practicing!” I announce that next time I will be taking the patient’s temperature simultaneously with the blood pressure. She smiles, like she remembers exactly how it felt to be in my shoes 40 years ago. “Go ahead and leave that machine in there, since we’ll be taking his vitals again in a few minutes.” I walk back into the patient’s room and leave the machine. My instructor/professor is walking down the hall at that exact moment. “Wow! It’s good to see smiles on everyone’s faces.” Obviously, she was mistaking my look of terror for a smile. I follow my nurse back to the nurses’ station – everything at that moment is a complete blur. She is going over lab results with me. “That’s odd – his hemoglobin isn’t low enough to require a transfusion usually.” I look at the lab values intently. I look at the patient’s name. It’s unfamiliar. “Are these labs the right ones for this patient?” She looks over them. “Wow, you’re right.” She tosses the labs to the nurse behind her. “These are your labs, they were in my patient’s chart.” “How did you find them?” “The student found them!” I smile proudly, I might not have been 100% on my vital signs, but I found what could have been a very costly error.

We go back to the patient’s room – “I thought that I told you to leave the machine in here…” (More of a question as opposed to a statement.) “I did – I don’t know where it went!” So, the hunt ensues, after only asking one time where it could be – I find not only one, but two machines. It’s a miracle! I proudly wheel the machine back into the patient’s room. I slap on the blood pressure cuff – I’m a pro now! I put the thermometer under his tongue. I turn on the machine. Nothing. Great, just great. “You need to turn on the machine before giving the thermometer to the patient.” Okay, I can still do this…no big deal. I obtain the patient’s vital signs. She charts them and has me get him the grape juice that he requested. And the Shredded Wheat cereal. And the whole milk. And the high protein shake. “He wants another grape juice – is that okay?” ! “Yep, we want him to take in as many calories as possible. You’re doing a great job getting him to eat.” “Oh, okay, thanks.” I haven’t done this much serving since I worked at Chili’s!

It’s 2:40, I’m supposed to have taken a break at 2:30, to be back in post-conference at 2:45. Shoot. I quickly thank her for all of her advice and help. I silently thank God that she didn’t yell, “What do you mean, you don’t know how to do this?”

I take the time to realize that I’m really here, I’ve really done it – I’m a student nurse.