This week was my 7th patient clinical day.  This was the first week that we took two patients.  I felt ready to do that.

I picked two what I thought to be interesting patients. they were in rooms next to each other and of different age groups.  Both with abdominal pain diagnosis but for different reasons..

As it turned out due to some turn of events at the previous clinical, and some training issue with the clinical instructor and the drug dispensing machine, I did not give meds this week. No one else did either. So with that out there really wasn’t much to be done.  I made one bed, tried to ambulate one (wasn’t interested) and the PCT ambulated the other.  She also emptied her JP drain so I didn’t get to do that this week as I had hoped I would. So basically I went assessed them both, charted, tried to monitor the I&O’s and seeing if they needed anything and not much else. So that kind of sucked.  Toward the end of the clinical day a few of us sat down in the day room (in between checks on our patient) and worked on our care plans.  I was able to get all my nursing diagnoses down on a paper with their supporting data.  We also chattered with a girl a semester ahead of us who was making up a clinical day.  She helped out with the care plans and gave us a heads up of what to expect in the next semester so that was very helpful.

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I finished my care plan today. I got smart and typed it out instead of trying to write it on the nursing care plan sheet provided like I have been doing  for the past 6 weeks.  It looks much better and isn’t cluttered. I am going to do that from now on.

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I have my second exam this coming Friday. (28th) I hope I do well on it,  The way my week is going this week, doesn’t leave much time for studying.  I have to work all weekend, I have clinical stuff to do on Monday, clinical on Tuesday, and I have to work on Wednesday. This leaves only Thursday for studying.  Guess what I will be doing all day Thursday??    I will bring my computer to work on the weekend to see I can get anything done.