Intro to Nursing

Hi Everyone,
I was just looking through some pictures of nursing school and wanted you all to share in some of my adventures in nursing school. These pictures were taken over two semesters of school last year. As you will see, Nursing is about the most fun major anyone can choose. Basically you have one crazy day of class all day long each week, and then you get to go on one to two clinicals (Kind of like field trips) each week to hospitals where you put your skills that you learn into practice on real guinea pigs, I mean people. :) Ok, so as you will also see, we have manaquins and each other as guinea pigs in nursing school.

Clinicals













Here we are bright eyed and bushy tailed on the first day of clinical, and then the whole group on the last day of clinical. Ahh, good times.











Here is the first day of clinical second semester, and the last day of second semester. This semester clinicals were at the University of Utah hospital and also the Huntsman Cancer Institute hospital. Both, great places. Our group had to be there by 5:30 am which meant that we had to leave Provo at 4:30 am. But it was worth it. Once you got there and started working, it wasn't so bad. Our clinical days were 8 hours long until the end when they became 12 hour shifts.

Skills Lab
Now we move onto the skills lab. This is where we learn all of our skills for the first time and practice them over and over. It is a very fun place to be.










These are general pics taken in skills lab. (From Left to Right...) Doing a Central Line Dressing Change. -This was a tricky one because you have to follow a bunch of rules for maintaining sterility. 2) Doing finger pokes on each other. 3) Showing off our wounds after receiving gluteal
(bum) shots.










This is when we got to learn how to draw blood...on each other! Despite the looks on our faces as we all hold souvenir vials of our blood it really wasn't so bad. More fun and kind of nerve-wracking than anything.
The last picture is when we practiced IV's on each other. My poor friend Angela was a great sport. After I failed getting the IV in her hand, we went for bigger veins (Antecubital) and had success, almost too much success. The picture doesn't show it, but there was blood spurting everywhere, you have to be fast to clamp off those little stinkers.














Angela's Revenge! Warning to all: If you are ever in a hospital and they want to give you an NG Tube, don't let them! (I really shouldn't be saying this) This is probably one of the most painful things that someone can do to you without having it be detrimental to your health. (Imagine the feeling of your nose breaking while you are heaving, trying not to throw up, and tears, lots of tears). The whole concept is to stick a tube through your nose into the stomach or further so that contents can be put in or emptied from said stomach. Well, in nursing we believe in experiencing everything that we may have to force our patients to experience which meant we got to try the NG Tube. This time I was Angela's guinea pig and she had her turn. The first picture is me clearly before the insertion of the NG Tube (Oh how naive I was). The second pic is me during the insertion of the NG Tube. (Actually Angela did a wonderful job, there is just no escaping the pain.)













And for the finale... This is where we learned how to prep for our experience in the operating room. We learned how to set up the sterile field, which has strict rules one must follow to do it properly. In the second pic, I am putting on my gown after "scrubbing in" (A term meaning you have washed and considered sterile enough to stand at the operating table). Again, strict rules. The last product shows the final outcome...two sterile, indistinguishable nursing students!

So there you have it. That is a brief look into the fun side of nursing school. Don't be misled though, school is tough and involves a lot of books and tests, but is worth it all.