I had my first clinical last Monday.  I went the day before after I got to leave work at 3pm for the approximately 45 minute to one hours drive to the clinical site to pick and record my patient information.  I got there and like 4 of my classmates were also there so we were all in various stages of pre -clinical work. It seems that the charting system at this facility is slightly easier and more user friendly than my previous clinical site.  It took me about an hour to gather the information and look at the hard chart for the telemetry strips.  I left and drove the hour home, ate dinner and began work on the pathophysiology and the drug look ups.  This patient had a list of drugs a mile long. Took forever.  I was pretty tired when I was finished and fell into bed at 9pm.  I had to get up at 4 the next morning.

The clinical day was fine.  My patient was nice and accommodating.  I heard my first heart murmur!!  I thought it was an S3 or an S4 sound but the doctor described it as a 2/6 systolic murmur.  I brought a couple of my classmates and my instructor to listen to it.  My instructor and I both thought it was closer to a 4/6 murmur.  It was awesome to hear my first murmur! I was so excited.  My floor did not give meds this week so other wise there really wasn’t much going on except for the one patient that was seriously flirting with Melyssa, me and Ria.  He was a riot.

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The last few days have been just a whirlwind of studying with Ria at her house.  We covered three modules worth of stuff in about 7 hours but it makes for an exhausting day and a busy week.  We are starting on the next module tomorrow.

I think all this studying helped me achieve a good grade on my first exam which was today.  I also did a ton of questions on PrepU in all chapters but especially renal because I am weak in that (AEB getting the nursing diagnosis for Nephrotic syndrome wrong on the test.)   I was nervous because it was the “big three” renal, cardiac, and respiratory. I made sure I got plenty of sleep and woke at 6 to leave by 0730 (ended up not leaving until 0745) and I got to the exam with 10 minutes to spare.  Our exams are on computer and we use the labs in the library to take them.  They are of course proctored by our teacher.    I got one of the 5 calculation questions at the end of the exam wrong when the teacher came around to check them.  I’m not sure why.  When I completed the test (in one hour), I clicked the submit button and the computer asked me if I was sure I wanted to submit and I clicked yes.    The next box said  something like Your test has been submitted and the grade recorded.  Of course, we didn’t know the grade because they always go over the test with another instructor before publishing the grades.  My feeling about the exam was that I did okay.

I was surprised when I got a call from Ria telling me the grades were posted.  While I was still on the phone, I ran to the computer and logged in and clicked the “my grades” box.  Then I saw my grade….   86.67%      Yes!!  I am so pleased with my grade.  I text my husband immediately and talked to Ria a few minutes more.  And then I got to work on the new modules (G.I.) work for which I am behind because I spent so much time studying.  Much to do.  This weeks reading, Schizophrenia NCLEX questions to write, Schizophrenia case study, reply to one more group discussion post (when they post it) and I’m sure there is something else that I can’t think of right now.

Next week is the first mental health clinical for the semester.  Out patient therapy, with another IPR in the pipeline.  Fun, my favorite.