Boring Clinical

Well, yesterday was my first clinical were I actually had a patient. Our instructor paired us up, so I wasn't completely on my own. Our patient had some mental issues and I don't think she ever even knew we were there. When she was awake, all she did was stare up at the ceiling. I don't think she even blinked...it was kind of sad. My partner wasn't very comfortable at first with going in and doing things on our own, so at the beginning we didn't really do a whole lot. By the time our instructor caught up to us, our patient was going down get some tests done. We went with her, which was kind of neat. She was getting an ultrasound and a CT-scan and the techs showed up were everything was at on the scans.

When we came back, our instructor came in with us and helped us do a full assessment on her. Not quite a physical, but almost. We take all the vitals, listen to breath sounds and bowels sounds, and do all the things like that.

Nothing else exciting happened until the very end. We had just gotten back from dinner and our instructor told us to go check on our patients and make sure they were alright and they we would meet for postconference, were we meet and go over any unexpected situations that came up, any questions, etc. We walked in to our patients room and her nurse was there feeding here through her G-tube. She pulled back her blanket and said "uh-oh." Yeah...our patient had a massive bowel movement that was just liquid. It was everywhere! I didn't even know where to begin with cleaning it up. It eventually us, our instructor, and all of the students to clean it up. It was a mess!! Sadly, that was about the most exciting thing that happened on our clinical. Maybe this next Saturday, I'll be able to do a little bit more.