50% Nurse... errr... 15% Nurse?
With the completion of our Pharmacology exam on Wednesday the accelerated class of 2009 are all now 50% nurses. Although if you want to get technical we are really only 50% done with a Bachelors in Nursing and we still have the NCLEX exam and most likely six months of on the job training which would probably only make us about 15% nurses. But don't tell anyone in my class that they'd be too discouraged.
$$$$ Making Money - Selling My Body $$$$$
What does one do with their free time once they have become a 50% nurse? Well I offered my body to science. Over the past couple of days I have made significant $$ by volunteering for some of the numerous medical studies offered at Hopkins. There really are no limits to what I am willing to do for a couple of bucks but unfortunately the really cool studies get filled up fast. I was just too slow to get to participate in the study where they "use a very small camera to take pictures inside of your rectum." I did get to do a neat motion study where I had two wet sponges placed on my head with a small electrical charge running through it to help me learn how to perform a task quicker. If you are thinking about the wet sponges in the movie "The Green Mile" so was I when they were strapped onto my head!!! YIKES!
Nursing Nerds!
I've also discovered Half.com where I have sold most of my old nursing texts. Interestingly enough, I sold two of my books to people from Michigan and one of them was my friend's 8th grade cheerleading coach. Small world huh? Mostly I have spent my time mentally preparing myself for the TEN HOUR drive back to Michgian and hanging out with friends from nursing school. Last night we all got together and discussed for a good 40 minutes the dangers of drinking grapefruit juice with medication (it messes with absorbtion). I'm not kidding... we really did... very nerdy... really nerdy... I'm embarrased I just wrote about it.
What "Floats My Boat"
Unlike a lot of my classmates (who are geniuses) I do not have a passion for the scientific aspects of nursing and as a result the second semester of Pathophysiology and Pharmacology were very hard for me. My passions are working with people, communicating complex things in simple ways, figuring out systems, improving systems, and making a what tends to be a stressful, difficult hospital stay easier for patients.
What really "floats my boat" specifically are patient safety and quality initiatives. Hopkins' role in starting a checklist for IV insertion in my home state of Michigan is what got me interested in leaving beautiful Michigan for Baltimore. Last week I got to attend and observe an amazing meeting of QSRG (Quality & Safety Research Group) which is an amalgamation of Hopkins nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and researchers all interested in improving patient quality and safety. I can't really do the meeting justice in a couple of sentences, but essentially the group discussed current, future and past research as well as the implications of data collected by each of these studies. The neat part was that this group is interested and innvolved in research at Hopkins, but in the state of Maryland, the nation and the world.
The Benefits of Hopkins Alums and Hopkins Nursing
As soon as I discovered QSRG I knew I wanted to understand it more. Luckily one evening I attended a free dinner hosted by the Hopkins Nursing Alumni Association where students were able to meet with alums in many different areas. I met quite a few very cool nurses, but one in particular who is now the patient safety coordinator at Hopkins was gracious enough to invite me along to attend the QSRG meeting. To top it all off I was recently named a Fuld Fellow which is program that allows nursing students to be matched with a mentor and assist in researching quality issues in a clinical setting. How cool is Hopkins Nursing? VERY COOL! I'll update my blog with my adventures in quality and safety as they unfold.
The second semester of nursing school at The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing can be summed up as: brains and babies.
I could end my blog right there.
But I won't!
Brains = Psychiatric Nursing ------ I was lucky enough to have an amazing clinical site, an amazing clinical instructor, and a really interesting clinical group that I learned so much from. The site was at Hopkins Hosptial on Meyer 5 which is the unit that works with in and out patient Schizophrenics, addiction, neuro disorders, and some depression. Basically, the unit gave me a flavor of a bunch of different aspects of psyciatric nursing and I couldn't have enjoyed it more.
Psychiatric Nursing is all about communication. When your patient doesn't have the words to explain how and why they feel you have to use your words to draw it out of them. Then it needs to be communicated to the team and documented so that every little change gets added into the big picture. Communication is my forte. I really enjoyed when I worked at a commerical bank and I got a really ticked off customer. I really enjoy learning new things from others and in turn passing on my knowledge to them. Because of this Psych nursing has a special place in my heart.
Babies = Obstetric Nursing (having babies) ------ Now I have to admit, right of the bat, that I used to subscribe to theory that I wanted no interaction with children until they could do math. I also purposely avoided holding babies because I thought their parents were just unloading them on me so they could have a break and because I was scared of breaking them. Now I love holding babies! (don't tell their parents this but it brings me back to my football playing days) You can be a manly man and still enjoy obstetric nursing, but whoa will you see some things you never thought you'd see. In an attempt to keep this blog PG I won't relay that information to you. Just take any birthing video you watched in high school and multiply it by 10. C-sections are even worse! Imagine two 130 pound doctors grabbing on to a fresh incision and just leaning back with all their weight to open it up. WHOA, talk about intense! I think I need to call my mom and say thanks right now...
Baltimore has been my home since May and I have now spent Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Haloween and Thanksgiving here. My classmates and I joke that we had better enjoy every holiday we can this year because next year we will be brand new nurses with no holiday seniority. This will be very different for me because at my previous job there was a week buffer between holidays where we spent more time screwing around than actually working!
I spent most of Memorial day driving to Baltimore for the first time... very lame (10 hour drive from Michigan if you were wondering). The 4th of July was awesome as Baltimore really celebrates in style with an amazing fireworks display. This display was further enhanced as I got to watch an enebriated fan of freedom stumble down a hill into a construction fence that then ricocheted him into a pile of construction cinder blocks. Ouch!
Labor Day and Halloween were spent enjoying adult beverages with good friends. One of those two holidays we dressed up and one we didn't... if I had to guess I'd say we dressed up on Halloween, but I wouldn't put money on it. :)
Thanksgiving has always been a holiday spent with family and this year was no exception. My parents sold their Veterinary Clinic about six weeks ago and are now semi-retired. Leaving them with plenty of free time to drive down to Baltimore for their first visit. They rented a great little row house about three minutes away from my apartment and we have been enjoying Baltimore's finest eateries every AM for breakfast and every PM for dinner. It has been a ton of fun. Turkey Day was spent eating roast beef, potatoes, and corn all imported from beautiful Michigan and grown on my parent's farm. With little entertainment open on Thanksgiving day we made our own by walking from my apartment in Fells point to Federal Hill. I had nevery seen the downtown so empty. It was neat contrast to all the other holidays I have spent in Baltimore. Aside from yet another Detroit Lions loss (why do I consider myself a fan?) it was one of the more memorable Thanksgivings I've had.
Now all I have to do is figure out how the heck to entertain my parents for another two days!
Forget McCain vs. Obama... the real hard hitting issue on the ballot this year is whether or not we should have fluoride in our public water systems. Apparently, 41 communities in Nebraska as well as one in New York, one in Maine and two in Wisconsin will vote today on whether or not to continue the practice of adding fluoride to the water supply.
The Issue. Those for flouride say it prevents cavities, improving the quality of life of its citizens. Those against say it is unnatural and we don't know enough about the possible side effects.
MICHIGAN Fun Fact! What we do know is that on January 25, 1945 Grand Rapids, Michigan (where I hail from) was the first city to add fluoride to its water. Grand Rapidians are so proud of being the first fluoride users that we have a statue to celebrate that fact. Unfortunately, I didn't move to Grand Rapids until I was 22 and my parent's farm in rural Michigan did not have flouride in the water leaving me with 9 fillings.
If you are reading this blog it is probably because you like or would like to have free food. I apologize in advance. This blog will not get you any free food. However, if you attend Johns Hopkins you will be eligible for so much free food it will rock your mind. I had four free meals last week alone. If I would have worked a little harder I could have had six.
The beauty of the free meal at Hopkins is that it is always attached to some kind of learrning experience. So while enjoying your turkey wrap, slice of pizza, fancy salad, and bottled water you have the pleasure of listening to some of the top minds in the field debate how ventilators should be rationed in the event of an epidemic. Or while you are eating your pasta, meatballs, salad, cheesecake, and garlic bread you can listen to three doctors debate the pluses and minuses of each presidential candidate's healthcare platform.
I've cut my food bill in half and expanded my mind at the same time! Thanks Hopkins!
P.S. The State of Michigan is well known for producing fruits and vegetables like cherries, apples, and asparagus. Rarely will you find Michigan produce for free because it is so good you want to pay for it.
Yesterday in Pathophysiology we covered ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome) which is a severe injury to both lungs that limits the lung's ability to exchange gasses. ARDS can generally be treated with sedation (to keep the patient from using up what little oxygen their lungs are capable of exchanging) and a ventilator with PEEP (Positive End Expiratory Pressure) which keeps all the little alveoli expanded so the most oxygen possible can get from the damaged lungs to the blood stream and then to our body parts.
However, if a ventilator is not cutting it the most drastic alternative is to use an ECMO setup. This treatment was pioneered in my home state of Michigan by a team lead by Dr. Robert Bartlett at the University of Michigan. ECMO is largely used for respiratory issues of neonates (with high success rates), but can also be used for adults. ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) pretty much pumps all of the blood in your body to a machine which mixes oxygen into the blood and returns it to your body. It gives the patient's lungs a chance to recover from whatever caused all the damage in the first place.
I have a special interest in ECMO because my sister was placed on ECMO when her idiopathic (fancy word for unknown cause) pneumonia developed into ARDS. If you perform a google image search using "ECMO" the third image result is a picture of her on the machine at the University of Michigan (ECMO machine, foot of a hospital bed, and brightly colored poster above the window). Notice all the blood in the tubes and the complex setup!
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=ecmo&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
http://www.ards.org/learnaboutards/whatisards/brochure/
http://surgery.med.umich.edu/pediatric/research/section/ecmo.shtml
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WARNING: The following blog is LONG, but it's my first time
blogging and I have lots to say! I
promise to keep them much shorter in the future.
One of my favorite things to do in nursing school is to
spread awareness to each of my classmates of the many wonderful products they
consume that are produced by the beautiful state of Michigan. My knowledge comes from the 4 years I spent
in finance and commercial banking prior to making the logical step to pursue a
career in nursing.
The neat thing about Johns Hopkins Nursing is that in my
accelerated class there are 130+ people telling me all the cool things about
their state too. Not just their state,
but maybe their experiences in college, the Peace Corp, or whatever their
previous profession may have been. Some
of my classmates knew they wanted to be nurses from the time they were born and
some (like myself) came to the conclusion a little bit farther down the road.
When I entered Hope College (in beautiful Holland, MI) as a
freshman I was interested in a career in either science or business. My love of both stemmed from my parents who
are both veterinarians and hired me to manage their business throughout high
school and college. While pursuing both biology
and business that first year I met an operations management professor and an
accounting professor who introduced me to the most basic (and exciting) aspects
of business. Their passion for their
fields swept over me and from that point on I was all business (pardon the
pun).
My job consisted of interviewing, researching and analyzing
businesses to judge how risky it would be to loan them money. I couldn't have asked for a more interesting
job, a better place to work, better co-workers or better management. However, during my first and second years on
the job three family members had extended stays in the hospital. While visiting them often, I was exposed to
some amazing nurses whom I credit for opening my eyes to the profession.
After a year of contemplation I approached management at my
bank and expressed an interest in returning to school. Luckily, they were willing to keep me on
despite my new career path and I began to tackle the nursing prerequisites that
seemed very foreign from the assets and liabilities I was used to.
I chose to come to Hopkins because its program is so
unique. It attracts such interesting/smart
people and brings us all together under the flag of the best hospital in the
country. I am enrolled in a MSN/MBA
program after I complete the accelerated BSN program. I hope to combine the lessons I learned from
my days at Hope College and Mercantile Bank with what I am learning now. But first I have the task at hand... Nursing School!
Prior to enrolling at Hopkins I had observed a close friend
go through her final year of nursing school and her first year as an RN. I was
hopeful that my observations of her would make my journey easier. Which they have... kind of... The
best analogy I can make is that nursing school is very similar to the
"two-a-day" practices I went through playing high school and college
football. You are pretty much testing
and improving yourself every day and it is a tiring process to say the least.
Hopefully, my future blogs will give future nursing students
an idea of what they are in for, let former nursing students reflect, and be a
really easy way to update my friends and family without spending 4 hours a day
on the phone!