First Clinical Lab - With Pictures!

Sorry, not real pictures from clinicals because that would likely be illegal...



Guys I got so caught up in my life troubles to tell you about the first day of clinicals lab!!! It was even better than I thought despite having 158374953945749 layers of clothes to put on at 6 in the morning.

Yes, my "whites" (our scrubs uniform for clinicals) consists of compression tight, compression socks to the knees, Dansko shoes (my mom spoils me and I love them!), tan undies, white see-through pants (reason for the other layers beneath),  tan bra, white/tan undershirt, white see-through scrub top, and, finally, a navy blue sweater. Goodness! Did you catch all that? I can hardly move, much less breath in this disastrous outfit, but it's required so I can roll with it 1-2 days a week. For future reference, remember that I am highly clumsy and typically wear mostly black with dark blue jeans for a reason. I grew up with a dad constantly working on cars and I have become accustomed to getting my hands dirty. Car grease is my favorite thing to have on my hands, no joke. So, wearing ALL white freaks me out to no end. Anyway, let's get on with this story!


So lab started at 0730 sharp. We went into the Simulation lab to meet our clinical instructor who I'm super excited to have teaching us. He informed us that our first ever clinical semester will be spent on the renal floor. Doesn't seem like a big deal right? That's what I thought. After further explaining our unfortunate placement, I learned that in the short time my instructor was at the hospital orienting on the floor he had several codes and I guess the patients and nurses don't take too kindly to nursing students... or anyone for that matter. Super. I don't know what G-d is going to teach me, but I have a feeling it will be profound because I internalize people yelling at me and insulting me to the point of severe, severe depression or even near suicide. I'm not exaggerating, it's happened before (getting that bad, not suicide). I know that this is something that I really need to not do and I plan on visiting the counseling center on campus regularly because this is going to be a rough few months.

Then, we had the pleasure of trying out a simulation. There were two of us students in the room with the talking, barfing, crazy manikin so it wasn't so bad, but I was completely unprepared. We had to pretend to call the doctor and had to put out a million fires with the super demanding manikin and it was just insane! What am I getting myself into? I thought I could do this but I'm starting to have doubts...

After that awful experience, we had wound lab. So much fun! We learned how to make a sterile field (which is simpler and harder than I expected, all at the same time). Then we drained a few wound drainage systems and practiced a sterile dressing change with pudding as purulent drainage. Yum. They have now successfully ruined at least two flavors of pudding for the majority of the class because of these labs. It's just the fun of nursing school.

Well, that's all that happened. Now you might have some kind of idea of what to expect! Let me know if any of y'all have questions because I would be delighted to answer any/all questions that I possibly can.