19 posts tagged “grades”

I passed Integrated Skills yesterday. Basically, you're given a scenario and you have 15 minutes to prepare (look up your drugs, make some notes, etc.). Then you go into the room where the mannequin is set up and do your thing.

My scenario was a man with Prostate Cancer who had a TURP the day before. He was on continuous bladder irrigation (CBI) and had dime size blood clots in the tubing with no urine outflow.

This tells me that he needs manual irrigation (which he had orders for). Crap. I had heard that we wouldn't have to do open irrigation since we didn't have much instruction on it, so that was something at least.

Except it wasn't true.

I did closed irrigation and the instructor says "It wasn't successful. Now what?" I said that I would do it again. "Okay, still didn't work. Now what?" Sigh... "I would get an order for open irrigation." "You got it. Go ahead."

Ah, shit.

I actually did the procedure perfectly. I also had to do a central line dressing change and give medications. The instructor told me I got a 100% (although it's really pass/fail). I hit all the points they wanted me to. Woohoo!

Today was my final. I did some studying with Laura Tuesday night and then yesterday I went over and studied with her and 3 other people. Then I came home and reviewed the power points online. I felt well prepared.

The good news is I got a 91% on my final!
The bad news is I got a 90% for my class participation grade which gives me a final average of 89.45. I hope my teacher rounds up or something because I REALLY WANT THE 'A', DAMMIT! I'm going to be pissed if I get a B.

Either way though, I am done for almost 4 months! And there was a sign-up sheet posted to select your clinical site for next semester so Laura and I signed up for the same one (Palms West, days. Not that close to my house, but I'd rather that than St. Mary's.)

Tonight is the Dolphins Banquet which would be more exciting if I didn't have to work tomorrow. Ah well...

Laura was supposed to call me when she got done at Skills Lab and then come over so we could study. She had an appointment at 10, I think, but she was going to try to get in at 8 and see if they could squeeze her in early. Well, it's 12 noon now and her phone must be off because it's going straight to voicemail. And for some reason I can't seem to motivate enough to start on my own (although I did print out the review transcript).

What I really want to do is take a nap. My eyelids keep drooping. And hey, I only have to get a 55% on the final to get a B in the class (I need an 89% to get an A. This is preferable.)

Naaaaaaaap.

I got an 88.91 on the HESI exam. I attribute most of that to good guessing, because as I was taking the test, I felt like I did not know anything. Well, I'd see the question and think "huh...I used to know that" and would give it my best shot. So, better than straight up guessing, but nowhere near actually knowing the answer.

Today I worked, but only until 12:15 or so. There were 5 of us on, and when I mentioned to the charge nurse that I was tired because it was coming up to finals, she said that after AM care was done I could probably leave. So leave I did. Which is nice because I am sleepy, but bad because that was my only day this week and instead of 12 hours I got 5.5.

Alex and I are going to Islamorada this weekend to celebrate our two year anniversary!

I am so excited!!!!

Also, I got a 90% on my test today! Woohoo!

I got a call today from the HR Director at the hospital. Apparently my paperwork came back a-ok with no 'discrepancies', which is what they call it when a date is off by a couple months for whatever reason, things like that. Nancy was excited that we didn't have to deal with that. The only thing is for some reason my high school records were going to take awhile to come back (come on! I didn't graduate that long ago!) so the background check agency wanted me to fax them my diploma. Fortunately I actually know where it is, and it's not buried in storage. I faxed it today but when I spoke to Nancy she said to bring her a copy when I come in so we don't have to wait.

I have to attend an orientation within 90 days of starting. JCAHO fines the hospital $2,500 for each day an employee works past 90 days without attending. Damn! The next one is April 16-17, which is M-T and I have clinicals those days. She said I could attend the one at the end of May since I will be out of school by then. I do have to go to an ethics class within 30 days. That is also on the 17th and starts at 1pm, I believe. So I have to ask my clinical instructor if I can leave at 12 that day. Hopefully that will be okay, she knows I've been hired for this job and she wrote me a really nice recommendation for it.

So! I have an appointment tomorrow at 9am with Nancy to finalize everything so hopefully I can start next week! 

I got a 92% on my test today! Awoohoo! Much as I hate to admit it, I think it might have something to do with all those required practice modules we had to do before this test. We had to complete 50% of the term requirement or we weren't allowed into the test. This brings my average up to 87.3%, 2.7% away from an A. That would be so awesome; this class is worth 7 credits.

Midterm evals for clinicals are on Monday. I'm not really worried about that. My teacher already said that my paperwork is great. I'm not saying that she won't have any suggestions for improvement, and actually I hope she does. I am gaining a lot of skill and confidence in this rotation and any constructive criticism is only going to further my competence.

In other news, Alex wants me to go to the doctor because I took my temp yesterday and it was 100.1F which means that I've basically been running a fever for almost 2 weeks now and I am just exhausted, even when I get a good night's sleep. I don't disagree with him but I don't have insurance now so it's going to cost me money I'd rather not spend. He does have a reasonable doctor who is very non-insured friendly, but it's down by him. He wants me to call and make an appointment today, even if it's not until next week. I am not sure why I am resisting this as much as I am. I can't function when I am this tired all the time. My life is exhausting as it is without adding a sickness to it. I just hope it's not something nasty I picked up in clinicals. I wouldn't think so, I'm pretty good about washing my hands upon entering and leaving patients' rooms. This week I had the same patient Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday they put him on contact precautions because his lab results came back positive for C. Diff. My first thought was, "Crap, I wish I had taken his vitals first," because you can't take dynamaps in isolation rooms so I had to take manual BP, use a disposable thermometer, and wipe my steth down completely with alcohol after I was done. My second thought was, "Great. He wasn't on contact YESTERDAY when I was in his room all day." Honestly, I'm not that worried because the organism is in his poop and you know I wasn't touching any of that.

Well I suppose I ought to get back to work. I only have 4 days left here, including today. Which reminds me, I seriously need to update my resume tonight.

I had a test this morning. Got a little better in the procrastination, but I still had some stuff to cover this morning. Anyway, I got an 82% but I should get credit added for one more question. The program tells you the questions you missed when you are finished, plus the correct answer.

The question doesn't really matter, but for the answer I put:
- Have patient ambulate as soon as possible
- Encourage coughing and deep breathing

The test program says:

WRONG
Correct answer:
- Have patient ambulate as soon as possible
- Encourage coughing and deep breathing

Hello! I called the proctor over and she told me to write down the question and my answer on my signature sheet before I turned it in. I talked to Laura and the same thing happened to her.

Exciting things in skills:
My brother let me start an IV on him on Sunday! I didn't actually hook him up to the IV line because I had used it in practice so it wasn't sterile. I did have sterile venipuncture needles so I just used those to practice hitting the vein. On the first try I missed. Since he said I wasn't hurting him, I started moving the needle around to try and get the vein. Still couldn't. That was my last needle of that type, so I had to use a butterfly needle next. With that one I hit it dead on and got a nice flash back! I was so excited! I feel good that I was able to do it that time, but now I know that IV starts might not be as easy as I thought.

In clinical on Monday I got to discontinue a Foley Catheter. Not much to it, but I think I did well and my teacher told me I did also. It's always exciting to get to do new skills!

Today I had my first test of this semester. It covered 16 or so chapters and I, like a jackass waited until last weekend to start studying. I had about 13 chapters covered last night when I went to bed at 1am. This morning I didn't even read the last chapters, I just went on to webct and read the notes and the powerpoints for those chapters.

I got an 86%

This does not mean I am going to do it this way again, though! Too stressfull!

You know, I had this whole blog post planned out where I told you my sorry grade, but rationalized it by saying that at least I passed the class.

Maybe I'll use that one tomorrow.

Because today, I got an 87% on my Nursing Lecture final!  Awoohoo!

What's especially nice about that is I only studied Sunday night and then yesterday for it because I've been so focused on studying for Pharm.

Laura's Columbian coffee FTW! I've always been able to drink coffee right before bed. Not so with this stuff. It is crack in a cup.

I got an 87%!

Who cares that I am subsisting on a diet of coffee and cigarettes? Who cares that I am getting 5 hours of sleep a night and am so exhausted I can barely move?

87!

I got a 90% on my Pharm test tonight. I even took it early, around 6pm, because I got to leave work at 2pm today. I am not going in tomorrow either. Stuff is just too messed up for them to worry about the doctors getting access to HPF until next week. Sweet, time to study for my final!