I've managed to survive the first two weeks of the semester. I haven't formed an opinion on my classes yet though. Because of the MLK holiday, we have only had one lecture in Medical-Surgical and Pharmacology. It's a good thing because I still haven't finished my reading assignments for either class despite reading every spare minute I have.

The concentration for this semester will be psychiatric and surgical nursing. My first clinical rotation is at the local mental health institute. They receive acute patients there, mostly via court. All patients are committed involuntarily. This means they cannot voluntarily leave either. It's been very interesting so far. We sit in on patient rounds first thing which is when the treatment team discusses each patient and then interviews them one at a time. The treatment team consists of a psychiatrist, RN, social worker, unit coordinator, and sometimes a nurse practitioner. It feels much different than what you would expect for nursing since it's all about the mental health status instead of the physical.

After rounds, we are supposed to have an interaction with our assigned patient. So far, we can't seem to get much done besides rounds even though we're there from 8:00 until 2:30. We did have one patient interaction on Friday.

I'm really looking forward to my surgical rotation. We'll get to follow a patient before, during, and after surgery. The during part is what I'm really looking forward to observing. My friends at work think I'm warped for looking forward to that. Maybe I won't be able to handle it, but I'm still looking forward to finding out.