First Week of Block 2

Wow we started off with a bang... or should I say a gag? It was all the yucky stuff today. But pretty fun too. We did NG tube insertion, trach care, trach suctioning & enteral feeding management with the Kangaroo pumps. Throw in some PEG tube medication administration and EKG placement and you have our first day of Lab skills!

Next week is IV insertion and blood draws & our first quiz in lab! We did some calculation review and I am still a bit confused on the dosage when the question involves a weight. It just seems weird to me that the dosage would be .11 or some such strangeness.

Ahhh our lab quizzes are based on powerpoints and reading the next week's assignment as some of the questions for the quiz will include topics to be covered so that they can make sure we are prepared for class. OK so its like knowing it before you are taught it or what? Lots of self teaching... but the instructors are also REALLY helpful. We got great detailed instruction in the lab at each station and they were there to answer the questions and didn't say... "what do you think? Or what did you read?" We got a lot of that with one of the instructors last semester.

But all in all I'm really looking forward to learning more skills actually and am starting to feel like I will be a real Nurse at the end of this. Its good to get back into the flow of actual core nursing and once I get this damn Algebra final out of the way tomorrow I'll be happier.

So next week looks like this... Test #1 in Theory moved to Thursday on Neuro & Endocrine. Then Quiz on Friday on NG insertion with NG, Duo, G, & J tubes medication administration, enteral feeding, EKG placement, trach care & suctioning, dosage and calculations. Along with any of the info contained in the reading for that days classes.

I also have my Volunteer orientation on Monday and start my additional IV class on Wednesday! So its beginning to get busier... once Micro starts its bound to get stupid busy!

Well that's about it... time to eat dinner then try and get some last minute calculation memorization in so I can pass this damn class!