Today was a bit of a tough day. I spent 3 hours in the nursing lab yesterday (Sunday) preparing for this wound dressing change. It was a wet to dry packed wound dressing change -a sterile procedure. I went over and over the procedure and the critical elements. We have a little acronym to help us remember these critical elements. MEIHIPPPP (Me Hip – you just have to remember that there are 4 P’s instead of one. )
- M- medical record Review
- E – equipment gather
- I -Identify patient and allergies
- H -Hand Hygiene.
- P – Pause for the cause
- P- privacy (provide for patient)
- P – pain (assess for it)
- P – position accordingly
I arrived in the lab at 0745 this morning. I went right to practice on the mannequin. I was so nervous this morning that I felt light headed. This was my first check off in nursing school. People kept telling me to take a deep breath. I scheduled myself to get it done first thing in the morning to get it over with.
The faculty I did the check off was nice and made it not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I passed and didn’t screw up my sterile field. So that was a relief! I skipped my 10 am learning assistant check off because I felt I was not ready. I went and got lunch at instead to bring back to the lab for our lunch and learn.
The lunch and learn was a combo one. NT suctioning (naso tracheal) and Suctioning a Trach and trach care. Being a Respiratory therapist this is right up my alley. 🙂 I will be required to do one of those two for my check off on Thursday. The choice will be made by coin toss. I ended up doing Restraits/TED hose/ Assisting with Ambulation check off which was more like a learning activity. So now I have two done and only like 11 more skills to go. (and 5 weeks to do it)
Meeting some of my classmates for practice in the lab on Wednesday.
Much book work to be done over the next couple of days.
