Thank God for high cut underwear
Today, I decided high-cut underwear was another one of the little things I am extremely thankful for. We gave our first injections today in our medication check-off, and I’ve been dreading it all week. It wasn’t the giving thereof, it was the receiving that had me in a dither. I just wasn’t into having my bum exposed to the world of my classmates. Getting an injection in the hip from a nurse in a professional medical environment is totally different from getting one from a classmate that you’ll be practically living with for the next 2.5 years. But things worked so nicely this morning. I only had to pull my skirt down on my hip and hitch the underwear up a little and I had a nicely exposed flank perfectly primed for an injection.
Knowing this was coming, along with some of the other personally invasive procedures we’re having to do in my assessment class, I’ve had to make some adjustments to my normal garb. It makes me feel perfectly heathen-ish, but I’ve gone to wearing skirts and blouses and a veil on Monday (assessment), Thursday, & Friday (clinicals). It’s amazing how hard it was on me to do that even though what I’m wearing meets all the modesty criteria. After agonizing for weeks, I decided it was much more modest to wear a skirt than wear my dress up around my neck for my assessment class. I’ve also totally ruined a covering in a matter of 4 weeks from having to play the patient in a hospital bed. So I just decided that I must be practical and not let it bother me. I had strongly considered switching to a veil at the beginning of the semester before I really knew my classmates because I knew I was going to have to be wearing a skirt and blouse for my uniform. But I just couldn’t go against that “veils are the first step to losing the covering” that’s been drilled into me. Now that my covering no longer has a shape, I’ve had to switch anyway. Only one of my classmates has said anything, and she just commented that she likes my “thingy.”
As a whole, the medication check-off went fairly well, although my fears did come true in that I forgot some of the little things. I was just cruising along getting my meds out and doing the triple check as I was supposed to. I made sure the label was turned to my palm on the syrup that I poured. Then I drew my saline injection without checking the label on the vial. GRRR. But my professor was really cool about it. She told me that she knows when a student is just nervous or just plain stupid. Joey was my patient, and I think he was a little tense because he flinched when I stuck him. He told me later that it didn’t hurt, but he just couldn’t help the flinch. So now I’m looking forward to injecting all those flu shots we’re going to be giving later this semester. It will be much more fun because I won’t be giving it in the hip, and I won’t have to receive one in return.
I have a classmate who is even worse about the whole issue of privacy than I am. It was all she could do to go to a female gynecologist, and I’m right there with her on that. She is freaking out to the point that she is seriously considering dropping out. Not only can she not stand the thought of letting anybody practice on her, but she also can’t imagine herself doing some of these procedures (i.e. catheters, bed baths, etc.) on a real patient. She thinks she could to children but not adults. The only thing that’s keeping her from dropping is that she would lose her scholarship. So she has to stick out this semester or lose her scholarship. I think my experience of having to have total care when I was in the hospital has helped me learn how to just turn my mind off the embarrassment. I hope it will just help me be sensitive to what my patients will be feeling and give them as much privacy as I possibly can.
We only have 3 more class periods left before we start our “real” clinicals. What a thrill to practice on real patients! We’ve been given our rotation schedule, and I’ll be going to 6 different facilities including a children’s hospital, a retirement center, a school, a clinic, & 2 hospitals.
I feel a lot better about my classes now that I’ve cut my work hours down to 28. I am able to study after class before I go to work, and I can tell a big difference although I was concentrating on my check off so much that I’m behind in my reading again. Now that it’s behind me, I can throw away my practice syringes and my saline-saturated orange and re-prioritize my schedule. I just hope that I don’t go into a panic when I get that first reduced paycheck this week. If I could just get that scholarship I applied for, things would ease up a bit. But I guess I’ll leave that in God’s hands.
Knowing this was coming, along with some of the other personally invasive procedures we’re having to do in my assessment class, I’ve had to make some adjustments to my normal garb. It makes me feel perfectly heathen-ish, but I’ve gone to wearing skirts and blouses and a veil on Monday (assessment), Thursday, & Friday (clinicals). It’s amazing how hard it was on me to do that even though what I’m wearing meets all the modesty criteria. After agonizing for weeks, I decided it was much more modest to wear a skirt than wear my dress up around my neck for my assessment class. I’ve also totally ruined a covering in a matter of 4 weeks from having to play the patient in a hospital bed. So I just decided that I must be practical and not let it bother me. I had strongly considered switching to a veil at the beginning of the semester before I really knew my classmates because I knew I was going to have to be wearing a skirt and blouse for my uniform. But I just couldn’t go against that “veils are the first step to losing the covering” that’s been drilled into me. Now that my covering no longer has a shape, I’ve had to switch anyway. Only one of my classmates has said anything, and she just commented that she likes my “thingy.”
As a whole, the medication check-off went fairly well, although my fears did come true in that I forgot some of the little things. I was just cruising along getting my meds out and doing the triple check as I was supposed to. I made sure the label was turned to my palm on the syrup that I poured. Then I drew my saline injection without checking the label on the vial. GRRR. But my professor was really cool about it. She told me that she knows when a student is just nervous or just plain stupid. Joey was my patient, and I think he was a little tense because he flinched when I stuck him. He told me later that it didn’t hurt, but he just couldn’t help the flinch. So now I’m looking forward to injecting all those flu shots we’re going to be giving later this semester. It will be much more fun because I won’t be giving it in the hip, and I won’t have to receive one in return.
I have a classmate who is even worse about the whole issue of privacy than I am. It was all she could do to go to a female gynecologist, and I’m right there with her on that. She is freaking out to the point that she is seriously considering dropping out. Not only can she not stand the thought of letting anybody practice on her, but she also can’t imagine herself doing some of these procedures (i.e. catheters, bed baths, etc.) on a real patient. She thinks she could to children but not adults. The only thing that’s keeping her from dropping is that she would lose her scholarship. So she has to stick out this semester or lose her scholarship. I think my experience of having to have total care when I was in the hospital has helped me learn how to just turn my mind off the embarrassment. I hope it will just help me be sensitive to what my patients will be feeling and give them as much privacy as I possibly can.
We only have 3 more class periods left before we start our “real” clinicals. What a thrill to practice on real patients! We’ve been given our rotation schedule, and I’ll be going to 6 different facilities including a children’s hospital, a retirement center, a school, a clinic, & 2 hospitals.
I feel a lot better about my classes now that I’ve cut my work hours down to 28. I am able to study after class before I go to work, and I can tell a big difference although I was concentrating on my check off so much that I’m behind in my reading again. Now that it’s behind me, I can throw away my practice syringes and my saline-saturated orange and re-prioritize my schedule. I just hope that I don’t go into a panic when I get that first reduced paycheck this week. If I could just get that scholarship I applied for, things would ease up a bit. But I guess I’ll leave that in God’s hands.
posted by Sara | 3:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home