ADULT HEALTH II CLINICAL ROTATION // LETIFFANYSHOW

Welcome back to my blog!

Adult health II clinicals is finally over and I could not be any more excited. I’m just tired lol and it felt super long. It was four weeks of endless paperwork and 12-hour shifts. I struggled taking care of myself during this rotation because I was drowning in paperwork and trying to get enough sleep. Bad tiffany! One thing I like to remind people (which I need to remind myself) is, take care of yourself because you can’t take care of others if you’re unwell.

Today I thought I’d talk about my overall experience in this clinical rotation. I was super nervous going into this rotation because I’ve heard that we were expected to do way more things. I suddenly felt so blank about my nursing skills and abilities.

In this rotation, we had a lot more expectations because our professor was more strict. She ran clinicals her way and sometimes her expectations didn’t match up with our past experiences. We were expected to do much more real nursing stuff but unfortunately due to past clinical experiences, we weren’t as equipped as she expected us to be. Therefore, her rules and regulations were very intimidating to me but as days went by, I got used to it and got through the days just fine. She emphasized time management and the importance of assessing your patients. It may have seemed repetitive at the time but a big chunk of this profession IS time management and assessing your patients. Getting your morning assessment done in time is important because it gives you a baseline and clinical picture of your patient. So if anything happens throughout the day, you would know its not normal. Makes sense, right? We also charted on our patients and it was a lot of clicking. One of the hardest parts was finding time to sit down to chart on our patients and I found that difficult for a lot of nurses as well.

At the beginning, we were assigned 1 patient each. This patient was our responsibility and we were expected to know everything about this patient. Therefore, we picked a patient the night before and did a bunch of paperwork regarding this patient. It required us to learn how to dig through their chart to find out the history and physical, the reason why they’re at the hospital, any relevant labs or diagnostics, and medications they’re taking. The paperwork was lengthy, especially after a 12 hour shift, but I found it really helpful because I liked being able to know what my patient’s situation was before I walked into their hospital room. So I spent a lot of time prepping to make sure I didn’t miss anything significant.

Even though in real nursing life I wouldn’t be able to do that, from all this paperwork experience, I learned how to efficiently find the relevant information I needed to properly take care of my patient. I would rather not do paperwork but hey, I learned new things. The section that took the most time was the medication list. Some patients have 3 medications, some patients have 20. Just imagine researching 20 medications for their recommended dosages, side effects, and nursing interventions. There were some medications that were repeated between patients so I kind of wish I created a database where I could just copy and paste the information but I think I learned it better by manually researching it every single time.

Eventually by week 3, I was upgraded to 2 patients and it was nerve wracking. The paperwork got heavier but by time I got 2 patients, I had learned how to efficiently find the important information the night before. As long as I had the important information, I could fill in the blanks later when I had some “downtime”. The information I needed was the information that told me what I would be looking for during my initial assessment. I did mostly focused assessments meaning I would just focus on the body system that’s affected by the reason why they’re at the hospital. For example, if they’re in for pancreatitis, I would focus on the heart, lungs, abdomen and their comfort levels.

Before this rotation, I set three goals to make the best out of my clinical experience. Here are these goals and whether I succeeded or not:

1. Improve my communication skills.

I suck at talking to people. I envy those who can make conversation with anything and everything. Like how do you do it? Teach me yo ways!!  I’m just shy and with ill patients, I’m afraid to speak because I’m scared I’ll say something that will offend them. So I just stand there and smile and let them talk. But this rotation, I improved with talking to the patients. Practice makes almost perfect! I tend to practice while driving. It probably looks crazy but I guess it worked because during my mid-evals, my professor told me I did just fine talking to the patients and nurses! YAY!

2. Be more assertive.

I’m not sure if I accomplished this one. But I asked way more questions and was able to ask for help when I needed it. I don’t know, I was pretty excited when I knew the answers whenever my nurse asked me something. That means I’m learning something!!

3. Take opportunities.

I definitely accomplished this one. I was presented with the opportunity to go to the ICU and ED and I initially did not want to go but I decided to take the opportunity and there were no regrets at all! It opened my eyes to other departments and challenged me to think about how I could be better.

And that was pretty much what my clinical rotation was like! I had a really good time these four weeks and compared to my first day, my confidence has boosted. I need to remind myself that I am capable and I can do this. It just takes time.

Say it with me. You are capable and you can do it! It doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as you don’t give up. 🙂

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading this blog post! If you liked this post, please like and follow my blog!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst… I just started maternal newborn and ugh save me. lol I forgot how to study.

 

---

Where to find meh ♥ :

Youtube: @letiffanyshow

Pinterest:@letiffanyshow

Tumblr: http://teafaakneeshow.tumblr.com

Twitter: @letifffanyshow

Experiencing My First Code in the ER // LETIFFANYSHOW

Welcome back to my blog!

I apologize for the lack of vlogs and blog posts. This has been the most rewarding but also the most emotionally draining rotation I’ve had so far in nursing school.

Today, I wanted to talk about my ED experience. It’s been about three weeks since I’ve experienced this but I wanted to make sure I had all the details written in this post. I went to the ED and it was great. I got to do compressions but I also faced my first death. Welcome to one of the hardest blog posts I’ve written so far.

Like the ICU, I was afraid of going to the ED. Something about the department just made me feel uneasy. But like the ICU, I decided to take the opportunity because when will I ever get to go to the ED as a nursing student ever again? (probably never)

My biggest fear going into the hospital is Code Blue and CPR because the patient’s life is LITERALLY in your hands and I knew that if one were to happen, they would put the student (me) to work! So after lunch, I was standing around and suddenly the overhead goes ATTENTION PLEASE ATTENTION PLEASE CODE BLUE RM 12 ETA 5 MINS and my dumb tired butt was like, “how do they time code blue?” -.- silly me. but I sped walk (because you never run) to room 12 and tried to dodge everyone that was coming in and out of that room to gather supplies for the code.

As we were standing in the room waiting, my heart was beating out of my chest. I was so nervous for what was about to happen.

What’s going to happen? What does he look like? What was this person like? How do I do compressions again?

All of these thoughts danced in my mind until EMS showed up with the patient and everything just happened so fast. The moment the patient arrived, everyone got to work and I honestly don’t remember much about it. I just remember hiding behind a tall doctor next to the sharps container, trying to be as invisible as possible. I was just taking in everything.

They quickly switched off people during compressions if they were tired and I was next in line. There was no time to panic and as I was stepping up to the plate, one of the nurses was like “just sing the song” and I’m thinking, “what song?!” then she started to sing it and it was Stayin alive by Bee Gees, which sounded like the rhythm you had to go when you did compressions. …that song is still stuck in my head..

If there was one major thing I learned that day, it was that I have to work harder at the gym aha

But jokes aside, I was literally putting my entire weight on this patient but it was SO ineffective that the defibrillator was like, “press harder” oh boy… After a minute which felt like an hour, someone switched with me so I could rest and after a couple rounds later, I jumped back in. I know, I was surprised that I decided to jump in again too. But the ER staff was so supportive that I felt like I was capable of doing compressions so I decided to get back in!

The patient ended up not making it and it took a while for me to process. The whole time I was in there, I tried to stay away from my emotions and focus on what was happening in front of me. I kept it together for as long as I could but after the doctor called the time of death, a nurse pulled me into the storage room and asked me if it was my first time seeing that. I said yes. She reassured me that we did everything we could and there wasn’t much left that we could have done. She also told me it was okay to cry and let me cry. I let it all out, wiped my tears, and went back to work. I wish I could thank her for that because it was really thoughtful and it helped me mentally handle the situation.

Although it took me a while to process what happened, it kept me thinking. Just seeing the family members and the thought of a lifeless person laying there, it was a lot to take in. But I’m thankful that I got to experience this during my clinical rotation and I’m not afraid of CPR anymore! whooooooooo but I really do have go back to the gym. Damn it muscle strength of -1.

But that was my experience of doing compressions for the first time. Some notable things I noticed during the code was that the doctor was super calm and collected. While everyone was trying to save the patient’s life, he took the time to talk to the family and update them on what was happening. Towards the end of the code, he also reviewed everything they’ve done so far and asked if anyone had any other ideas. I thought that was great because someone could have thought of something that no one else had thought of. Inclusion was a theme in this code.

This is something I will never forget and I’m thankful I got to experience it during my clinical rotation.

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading this blog post! I hope this all made sense and wasn’t difficult to read. I’m not sure why I had such a hard time writing this one but it was an experience I really wanted to share with you all. If you liked this post, please like and follow my blog!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst… I’m need a nap.

MY ICU CLINICAL EXPERIENCE // LETIFFANYSHOW✨

Welcome back to my blog!

I usually vlog my clinical experiences but unfortunately, I caught a cold and it’s been really difficult to speak without coughing so I apologize for that! I also have a lot of phlegm and…that’s too much info. So today, I thought I would talk about my ICU experience!

I am currently in my adult health II clinical rotation. This rotation is mainly on the medical surgical floor but my professor assigns us to different departments like the intensive care unit (ICU) or the emergency department (ED) on some days. The thought of going to the ICU made me super uneasy so I didn’t plan on going but after a small pep-talk, I decided to try it out. I mean, when will I ever have a chance to go to the ICU as a nursing student? Today’s blog post is about what I learned from the ICU and a collection of thoughts about working in the ICU.

Disclaimer: I’m not very knowledgable about different departments so I’m practically clueless whether all ICUs are similar or not lol but this is what I saw that particular day.

Coming from 4 days at the med surg floor, the ICU was very quiet. Everyone was critically ill and I wasn’t used to it. I felt really sad/concerned for the patients and I wanted to get out of there. But I knew I had to stick it through so I followed my nurse around and helped her with anything she needed. At one point, I just stayed in the room with the patient’s family member cause we knew she just wanted someone to talk to. It was nice that even though I couldn’t physically help her, just by simply listening to her was therapeutic (or at least I hope so)!

It was really interesting to see how ICU nurses work vs. med-surg nurses. In this particular ICU, the nurses only have two patients but it is all total-care, meaning there is no CNA assisting you. It’s just you and your two patients. In med-surg, you have 5-7 patients but you have a CNA helping you out with vitals and helping the patients go to the bathroom or bathing them. Two patients sounds nice but you have to remember they are critically ill patients so I learned that it’s important to have amazing time management. My ICU nurse didn’t really have much time to sit down as she was walking back and forth between rooms to check on vitals, replacing IV lines, replenishing IV fluids/medications, administering medications and providing patient care. In between all of that, she was also comforting family members and keeping the rooms organized and clean. It’s amazing what she does! And this is random but I can’t stop wondering why my nurse’s rooms weren’t right next to each other. She had to walk across the hall to get from one room to another…

One thing I noticed is that the ICU nurses really help each other out. There was an emergency in one of the rooms across the department and my nurse disappeared. I had no idea what was going on but it turned out that the patient was going into hypovolemic shock. He was bleeding internally and was in need of replacing a lot of things like fluids and blood products! Everyone swarmed in and out of the room to help the nurse caring for this patient. People were coming from left and right to grab supplies for the emergency and the doctor popped out of nowhere started to insert a central line. I felt bad because I was kinda just standing there being in the way so I tried to make myself available for anything they needed! The charge nurse had me hold pressure on the wound so I was standing in the center of all of the chaos. I watched the doctor up close insert that central line and it was a lot of to take in. But it was amazing to watch everybody come together as a team. Even when there wasn’t an emergency, I saw the nurses helping each other out. Like if another nurse saw something about one of my nurse’s patients, she would come and let her know and vice versa.

In the end, I thought the ICU was great and I really liked it. It was really hard to be surrounded by critically ill patients but they say you get used to it. After all, the healthcare team is working very hard to help them recover and be more comfortable. After observing my nurse’s skills and abilities, I don’t think I’m there yet but maybe one day! Who knows!

And that is what my ICU experience was like! This week, I’m going to the ER and I’m super nervous about it. It’s another department that I get nervous when thinking about it. But again, when will I ever get to go there as a student? Wish me luck!

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading this blog post! If you liked this post, please like and follow my blog! Hopefully I’ll get to vlog again now that I’m recovering from my cold. It came at the worst time possible -.- POR QUEEEEEEEEE?!!??!?!?!?

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst… I’m need a nap.

 

---

Where to find meh ♥ :

Youtube: @letiffanyshow

Pinterest:@letiffanyshow

Tumblr: http://teafaakneeshow.tumblr.com

Twitter: @letifffanyshow

THE HARDEST BLOCK OF THE PROGRAM pt. 1 // LETIFFANYSHOW

Welcome back to my blog!

On Tuesday (July 31st), I took the first assessment of Adult Health 2 and it was stressful! Adult health 2 or block 10 has a reputation of being the hardest class in the program. To be honest, I was kinda like meh when people told me that because they also said block 4 (pharmacology) was hard but we got through that and block 5 (adult health 1) which was also difficult but we got through that. Nursing school is hard, okay? but we’re going to get through it just fine.

This first half had so much information that my mind was blown. At one point, I felt like I had all this information but I didn’t know what to do with it. I think the most difficult thing about adult health 2 was how much material there was to learn in two weeks. There were so many disease processes, signs and symptoms, and nursing interventions to remember. But early on, I noticed in adult health 1 that if I understood the pathophysiology of the disease process, then I would be able to understand why the signs and symptoms were happening. That made it so much easier to remember the signs and symptoms.

I had trouble understanding the diseases and procedures because I couldn’t picture it. I’m a visual learner so just by reading the book or listening to the professors made no sense. To help me get past that, I found diagrams of the organ we were learning about and printed them out. And then when I was learning about certain diseases, I used the diagrams to follow along and pinpoint what part of the organ was being affected.

To visualize procedures, I searched it up on youtube. There is a gazillion different videos of procedures on YouTube and it’s amazing. I watched one about a patient with chronic atrial fibrillation getting elective synchronized cardioversion. They did such a great job explaining the purpose of everything and that helped me remember the interventions for patients with chronic atrial fibrillation.

For this block, the professors did frequent webinars to reinforce our learning and answer any questions we had. I really liked that because it helped me focus on the more important things rather than wandering off into information I didn’t need to focus on. One thing that’s difficult about nursing school is what to focus on. I’m always torn on “I should focus on this because I need to pass the exam so I can graduate” and “But shouldn’t I know this for the NCLEX and to be a good nurse?”. But I only have so much time to know everything since this is an accelerated program so I tend to do the first one.

The actual exam wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I mean it was difficult but it wasn’t SUPER HARD LIKE THE WORLD IS GOING TO END. The hardest thing about these exams is that you don’t know how in depth or detailed they’re going to ask you. So you have all this information crammed into your brain but what are you going to do with it? One mistake I made was glossing over musculoskeletal. I was lucky and picked the right answers for some of the questions but there’s always that anticipation of whether I got it right or not. Luckily the ones I did get wrong were nullified after EBR so I got super lucky with that!

But in the end, all was well. I passed with a 93.33% (with EBR) which is a miracle because I thought I was going to remediate. And I really really didn’t want to remediate. Remediating is NOT a bad thing but I didn’t want to go through all that stress again! NOO THANK YOU. So I’m really thankful that they nullified many questions and they happened to be the questions I needed.

Now I have two days before I have to go back into “grind” mode but it’s nice to have a day to breathe and relax. I’m going ziplining at the Fremont Experience in a few hours and I’m super nervous about that. I’m scared of heights so I dont know why I agreed to do this LOL but it sounded like a good idea last night when I was 70% asleep. Oh well, you only live once……………help. (edit: it was actually a lot of fun!! 10/10 would recommend!)

Anyways, that’s pretty much it for this blog post. It’s been a  stressful two weeks but I always have to remind myself of the bigger picture and if I want to be the best nurse I can be, then this is all worth it. 🙂

Thank you for stopping by and hanging out with me! If you liked this blog post, give it a biggggg thumbs up! And subscribe to my blog for future notifications of when I post! Also check out my youtube channel where I upload my vlogs!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst… I’m still tired.

 

---

Where to find meh ♥ :

Youtube: @letiffanyshow

Pinterest:@letiffanyshow

Tumblr: http://teafaakneeshow.tumblr.com

Twitter: @letifffanyshow

TRAUMATIZED BY SIM LAB (lol) // LETIFFANYSHOW

SIM lab is a place where all dreams go to die. Kidding. But I may or may not be traumatized by my SIM lab experience.

Welcome back to my blog! I participated in a SIM lab and I thought I’d write about my experiences and reflect on what I would have done different. Grab a snack because this is going to be a long one…

Background

Simulation lab (SIM lab for short) is an activity we have in nursing school where we’re put in a room that mimics a hospital room with a SIM mannequin that mimics a human. It’s pretty cool cause the mannequin has respirations, has a pulse, and it talks! Well, the professor and the IT master control the mannequin in the control room but it’s amazing how much technology we have these days. So basically, the professor gives us a scenario, picks 2 student nurses to go in the room to do the simulation while the rest of the group sits in a different room and watch them do their thang on a big screen tv. I’ve done this before but this time, it was bad…

For some reason, I had a feeling my professor was going to pick me so I studied up on the topic. We knew it was going to be on Pulmonary Embolism (PE) so I focused on PE the night before when I was studying for my exam and reviewed before the lab. That way, if she picked me, I wouldn’t be completely clueless on the nursing interventions and what to do when your patient is having a difficult time.When she picked me, I was super nervous but I was like, ok I got this, lets do this. I have nothing to lose but some dignity (LOL)…

And… I don’t got it.

You see, the thing about these simulation labs is that you think you know what you’re going to do but the moment you go into the room, its like you forget everything nursing. Not only you have pressure of saving the SIM patient but also in the back of your mind, you have at least 8 pairs of eyes watching you. It’s a lot of pressure! So the moment my patient said, I CAN’T BREATHE and I’M IN PAIN, my mind completely blanked. And as we assessed the patient even further, his HR kept going up and his oxygen saturation kept going down. He was crashing and I blanked even more. The worst part was, the SIM patient said he was in pain and I administered morphine without checking the computer for orders or calling the provider. *facepalm* In the moment, I was thinking, “okay he’s in pain, pain is a priority, I should relieve his pain.” But in reality, WHY DID I DO THAT?! I KNOW BETTER. -.-  I guess on the bright side, I did hand hygiene and wore gloves lol … i guess. *facepalm* why…

I knew the end product was the patient had a Pulmonary Embolism because it said on the schedule but the point of this simulation was to get from point A to the end product. It’s like this large puzzle and you have to somehow put together their symptoms (the puzzle pieces) and then notify the doctor and try to relieve the problem. This is exactly what nurses do in real life! So when I failed, I felt really bad about it and guilty. Like why couldn’t I do it? and WHY DID I GIVE MORPHINE WITHOUT CHECKING FOR ORDERS?! GOODNESS. *more facepalm*

I think the hardest part was hearing all the “you should have, could have” done _____ from my peers. It is a learning experience but honestly, all i wanted to say to them was, “you don’t know what it was like until you’re in there”. I’ve definitely been in the viewing room and in my head I’m shouting like omg you should be doing this why are you doing that? like its a TV show but when you’re in there, it’s completely different. I was low key crying during the whole debrief because 1) I’m emotional 2) I was beating myself up for the dumb things I did in there. I know better and I know I could have done better but it is what it is and on the bright side, it’s a mannequin and he’s fine…I think…

What I would do differently is call the provider as soon as his vital signs started to deteriorate. The sooner I get the doctor’s orders, the sooner I can implement them and help the patient relieve the symptoms and prevent his condition from worsening.

I can literally write a book called “things you shouldn’t do as a nurse” based on my actions in the SIM lab that haha it was horrible. But again, I learned from my lesson and I hope my peers did too lol “this is what you shouldn’t do in a situation like this” 🙂 AND thank goodness they didn’t make me watch myself fail. That would have been even more traumatizing LOL I laugh about it now but man, during and after the simulation lab, I was a mess. sigh…

Anyways, that’s pretty much it for this blog post. If you guys have any stories from nursing school or even as a real nurse, comment them down below and we can laugh or cry about it together!

Thank you for stopping by and hanging out with me! If you liked this blog post, give it a biggggg thumbs up! And subscribe to my blog for future notifications of when I post! Also check out my youtube channel where I upload my vlogs!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst… I’m exhausted.

PSYCHIATRIC-MENTAL HEALTH NURSING+ HOW I STUDIED// LETIFFANYSHOW✨

Welcome back to my blog!

The first part of Block 11, Psychiatric-Mental Health nursing, has ended  and my oh my, where has time gone?

One of the hardest things about this block was getting back into study mode. The two blocks before this block were a lot more relaxed so trying to get back into the “grind” mindset was very difficult. I also got really sick during this block, so that didn’t help!

WHY IMMUNE SYSTEM, WHY?!

Having a passion for psychiatric-mental health nursing was a big factor in my ability to focus and learn the material. Mental health has always been something that I felt was important to be aware of so learning the material wasn’t so bad.  It also helped knowing that it was something I might want to go into one day. I guess we’ll find out in clinical rotations!

How I studied: I studied this block using the same methods as before. I downloaded the content outlines from each module and filled them out as I read. That definitely helped me stay focused. I also printed all of the content summaries and highlighted the important parts. Actually, everything was important so I almost highlighted the whole page… *guilty* For the pharmacology portion, the professor posted various games that helped me remember important facts about each drug. Repetition really does work you guys! I also wrote out on a piece of paper the prototypes of the drugs and its classification. One thing I realized that was pretty helpful was to write out all of the side effects. We often see medications with side effects like “CNS depression” or “extrapyramidal symptoms” and then followed by a crap ton of symptoms! So I found it helpful to have a page that listed all of the general side effects and what happens if/when it occurs. It definitely helps to clarify things and makes it easier. Mnemonics were also my best friend for this. For example, I used ADAPT for extrapyramidal symptoms!

Acute Dystonia Akathasia Pseudoparkinsonism Tardive dyskinesia

Pretty cool right? Definitely useful when theres so many side effects and symptoms to remember!

Therapeutic relationship and communication were the main themes of mental health. Sure, there are medications to calm the patient or alleviate the problems but you need to be able to effectively communicate to assess the situation and go from there! A lot of our exam questions were related to how to speak to patients. There were questions that asked which response was most appropriate and you would have to pick a quote. Some of the answers were really obvious like why would I say that to someone? However, I stared at the remaining answer choices like uh.. I don’t know? haha and these questions are very difficult to EBR (evidence base review) because there is no direct quote in the book that tells you the right answer so there is no way to prove that any of the answer choices would be correct.

Evidence Based Review: the fourth stage of our exam process where we are able to “argue” against our professors on each question and use the textbook as proof to either get it nullified or get our answer choice to count.

Speaking of the exam, MY COMPUTER CRASHED/RESTARTED/SHUTDOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EXAM! OOF that was loud. But yes, that did happen. During the exam, I was on number 35 and my computer went to a black screen and then back to the login screen of my computer. My heart literally stopped, like why now? It went to an orange screen where I had to ask my professor for a resume code and I got to go back to where I left off. I almost cried and it definitely threw me off! But eventually, I finished my exam and I felt pretty good.

But boy was I wrong… (and this is why I’m never super confident) Since this exam had 60 questions and my team got the 90% or higher on the team assessment, I was allowed to miss 9 questions. I ended up missing 12 and that was pretty devastating because I actually thought I got this one. I also really did not want to take this exam again. No one does.. So I was depending on EBR to pass. *fingers crossed* All I needed was 3 questions but it looks like they threw out a bunch!  They were really generous and I was very thankful for that! We all passed and I passed with a 95%. <—miracle right there!

It was a little soul crushing knowing that I could have failed because this was something I wanted to do! How embarrassing.. haha but that’s not going to stop me. Maybe clinical rotations will… it really is a great feeling to pass considering how difficult the past week has been. So you know what? You live and you learn! I’m thankful to be here and I’m doing my best to become the best [insert specialty here] nurse I can be.

But that’s pretty much what the first part of block 11 was like!  I vlogged a part of it so check it out aboveeee! The second portion is called Community Health /Public Health nursing and it’s not too bad so far. There’s this group project that leads us into the community health clinical rotation so it’s important we do well. Look out for a future post where I’ll talk more about the project! 🙂

Thank you for stopping by and hanging out with me! If you liked this blog post, give it a biggggg thumbs up! And subscribe to my blog for future notifications of when I post! Also check out my youtube channel where I vlog about nursing school!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst… hi! so if you guys were wondering… for some reason, the blocks are numbered out of order and I have no idea why. I went from block 7 to block 11 and next is block 10, I believe. Weird, right?

 

---

Where to find meh ♥ :

Youtube: @letiffanyshow

Pinterest:@letiffanyshow

Tumblr: http://teafaakneeshow.tumblr.com

Twitter: @letifffanyshow

24 Things I Learned in 24 Years 🎉 | LETIFFANYSHOW✨

Welcome back to my blog❤︎ 

I’m turning 24 today.

24?! You look 16.

Ikr? I got carded at the Wynn last weekend but oh my goodness, I love being carded. It makes me feel young! 🙂

Security: Hi ladies, I have to check your IDs please.

Christina & I: oh yes please do so. *handing her our IDs*

Security: Sorry, it’s just my job.

Christina & I: oh no, the day you guys stop asking for my ID will be a very sad day because that means we’re getting old.

…twenty…four…

Yikes. It’s such a weird age. lol and I thought 23 was an awkward number. But I feel like after turning 21, there’s nothing to look forward to anymore. At least at 25, I can rent a car. Sigh. anyways, today I thought I would share some things I’ve learned so far.

1. Mama knows best. She’s usually right.
2. It’s okay to not know what you’re doing. Chances are, no one does.
3. Let go of toxic people. Bye!
4. Do things for you. Do what makes you happy, not other people.
5. It’s not the end of the world. Seriously, stop overreacting.
6. Capture the moment. You’ll want to look back at it one day.
7. People come and go. Let them leave as they please.
8. But the ones that stay are the most important ones. Especially the ones you don’t talk to everyday but when you’re together, its like you never left.
9. Things change. But people don’t.
10. It’s okay to fail. Second times the charm!
11. Avocado toast is delicious. Sorry, I had to say it.
12. Life keeps going. Stop living in the past.
13. Trust yourself. It’s just you and me, pal.
14. Go workout or something. So you can eat more later.
15. But listen to your body. Stop pushing yourself so hard.
16. Crying helps. C’mon we all do it at some point…
17. Sh*t happens. It really does. But you know what? You’ll get over it.
18. It’s okay to say no to things! Seriously.
19. Don’t listen to social media. IG, Snapchat, and everything around you only gives the glamorous snapshot of their lives. Don’t be fooled.
20. Read/listen to the news. Understanding what’s going around you and beyond makes you smarter.
21. Communication is key. Not to patients, not to your friends…but to yourself. Know what you want.
22. Everything will set into place. One day, you’ll wake up and say, “I made it.” Work hard and that day will come soon.
23. Be yourself. And nobody else. (that was cheesy). 14 year old Tiffany would be proud.
24. Breathe, child. 

I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

 

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst…

Building My Nursing Philosophy pt. 1 // LETIFFANYSHOW✨

Welcome Back to My Blog!

Today marks the end-ish of Block 6: Nursing Theories, Practice, and Issues. I turned in my philosophy paper last week and it was such a struggle. I literally forgot how to write a paper. All those writing classes I took in college has gone to the “nice to know” region of my brain and recently moved to the brain grave.

This class is all online and the assignments consist of discussions, one philosophy paper, and one group presentation about a philosopher. The discussion posts were always a hassle because in the past blocks, they were mostly done with group members. That meant we had to coordinate with each other and it took a lot of time. But for this block, they were all individual responses.  However, one requirement is to respond to two of your colleagues post but those weren’t time consuming. You pretty much compliment on their post, say whether you agree/disagree or add your input!

For the presentation, we had to choose a philosopher. Good thing my group member was on top of it because I was completely out of the loop. We chose Jean Watson and we just followed the rubric/guideline. If you guys were wondering how 8 people worked on a presentation, we used google presentation! It’s great because we can work from our comfort and watch it being put together.

The only downside is if you convert the google presentation to an actual ppt, the fonts may not transfer and the images may be distorted so definitely double check before uploading!

I may or may not have slacked a little and ended up having to come up with a clinical scenario. And let. me. tell. you… that was..wow. hella difficult! I hope it was acceptable because I had the worst time trying to come up with one. Fingers crossed? :<

This block as a whole was pretty relaxing. Maybe…a little too relaxing but I’m not complaining. Since it was mostly discussions and that paper, I decided to do all of my discussions ahead of time so I could focus on my paper. The paper was so difficult for me to start/write that I began to write it like a blog post! I guess these blog posts are paying off because that def made it easier. I like to tell people my paper was a blog post without the bad grammar and the lols 🙂 I ended up doing well so that was definitely a big relief! I really don’t like papers…

Next is Nursing Research and I don’t really know what to expect. Perhaps…nursing..,research? Who knows! haha anyways, that’s what block 6 was like! I didn’t really vlog about it because there was nothing to vlog. I literally just sat there and stared at my computer for 15 mins per day and that’s it. I did vlog my first cycling class experience and getting my ears pierced so I’ll leave that right here!

Thank you for stopping by and hanging out with me! If you liked this blog post, give it a biggggg thumbs up! And subscribe to my blog for future notifications of when I post! Also check out my youtube channel where I vlog about nursing school!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful. Thanks for reading!✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst…Oh and what’s my nursing philosophy? Find out in the next blog post! 🙂

RECAP: Adult Health Clinical Rotation// LETIFFANYSHOW✨

Wow! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a blog post. I’ve been neglecting this website and focusing on my vlog channel. I know i know, all you’re hearing are excuses.

So let me catch you up on what’s been happening! On the last post, I talked about remediating and the pains of it. NEVER AGAIN. And my wish came true! I passed assessment two by only missing 4! It was a miracle! After the exam was over, we were given a week off from school. Technically, that was the week for “block remediation” but if you didn’t have to block remediate, then you could relax. I honestly had no idea we even had a week off or else I would have planned to go somewhere or would have gone home. Oops! After that week, we started clinical rotations! And that is what today’s blog post is about. So.. lets taco about it! I vlogged about it so here’s the first two weeks of vlogs! 👇

This clinical rotation was 3 weeks long. My assigned days were Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and it was 7am-7pm. Time went by so much faster this rotation. It’s probably because we were able to do so much more than just stand there and watch our nurse chart. In this rotation, I was allowed to start IVs, pull IVs, hang IVs, pass out medication, give shots and of course provide all basic patient needs.

I also got to see more things! I got to see a PICC line insertion and that was really cool! The PICC line nurse was so kind and taught us why a PICC line is preferred over an IV for some patients. She also explained to us what she was doing step by step! I also had the opportunity to adventure out into different departments. I got to see the Interventional Radiology department where they do minimally invasive procedures using x-ray imaging. I also got to work in the ER, which was intimidating. It’s really interesting to see the nurses role in different departments. For example, the interventional radiology nurse does mostly paper work and monitors the vitals signs. In the ER, its interesting to see how the nurses prioritize, especially when its hectic and new patients keep rushing in.

I really struggled with IVs. In med surg, there weren’t many opportunities to put in IVs since most patients that were transferred to the floor already had one in. You would be lucky to get one if your nurse happen to have a patient who needed one. I was not one of the lucky ones. It wasn’t until I got to adventure down to the ER where I got IV experience. In the ER, every patient admitted needed one so I got plenty of opportunities. Let. me. tell. you. How they teach you in skills lab is so different from real life. The skin/veins on the fake arm is so much more firm whereas real skin is more soft and I guess…jiggly. OH and I guess the fake arm doesn’t scream either… so… sticking in the needle feels different and of course each patient has different skin texture. I got to attempt an IV on four different patients. It’s funny because they teach you to not tell them it’s your first time doing an IV.

Patient: Is this your first time?

Me: I’ve done it a hundred times (…in lab..) 🙂

I only got 1 out of 4 IVs in successfully. It got a little discouraging every time I failed but my nurse was very supportive and gave me insight on how to be successful. It’s something I wish I could practice more on but I’m afraid to hurt people or break their veins. Since I only had so many opportunities to do an IV, I hope I don’t forget the skill in the future.

On the bright side, I saw myself improve in patient communication. I remember in my first rotation, my professor stuck me in a patient’s room and I literally had no idea what to do so I just stood there. This rotation, I was able to go into a patient’s room and have a proper conversation with them. I still struggle when a patient starts talking about their feelings or cries. You know, they teach you these things in the ATI modules and the book but like in real life, it feels different. Like I look at those readings and it’s like common sense. But when a patient cries, I suddenly don’t know what to do.  I just stood there and held her hand and listened to her talk/cry.  I tried?

So all in all, this was a pretty good rotation. Time went by so much faster and I didn’t feel the dread of going to the hospital. I guess the only thing I really dreaded was driving to the hospital but that’s the reality of having a job…the drive.. My professor made this so much more worthwhile as well. She was so kind and I could tell she wanted us to succeed. If we didn’t know something, she would have us research about it and report to her at the end of the day. At the time, it probably felt a little embarrassing and intimidating but in the long run, I think it’s worth it. I find that researching the topic sticks to my brain longer than someone just telling me. It just goes from one ear to the next haha.

Anyways, that was pretty much what my adult health clinical rotation was like! I vlogged about it here and there and went more into depth about what happened each day so check them out above! For the next two blocks, it’s all didatic (online) so a lot of my colleagues are going home. But for me, I’m just going to stay here because I can’t study at home. Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this recap of my clinical rotation!

Signing off from this blog post… I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful.

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst…So you know how in my last post I said I loved the resident? I found this video of a real doctor watching the resident and it’s the funniest thing ever. I wanted to share it with you here!

 

---

Where to find meh ♥ :

Youtube: @letiffanyshow

Pinterest:@letiffanyshow

Tumblr: http://teafaakneeshow.tumblr.com

Twitter: @letifffanyshow

IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OKAY..remediation at its finest // LETIFFANYSHOW ✨

Welcome back to my blog!

Before I begin, I’d like to thank everyone who sent me positive vibes and encouraged me through this process. It made me really happy and your support definitely got me through this! Thank you so much! You guys are the best! ❤

So, remediation. Let’s talk about it.

For those who are new to my blog, hello! my name is Tiffany and I’m so glad you’re here! My program requires us to get a 90% or higher on everything which includes exams, assignments, projects, etc! If we do not get a 90% or higher on our exams, we go into remediation. It’s kind of a second chance for us to get that 90% of higher except during remediation, you don’t get team points. We have to get that 90%+ on our own and through evidence based review. Scary right? If you don’t pass remediation, then you go into block remediation. If you don’t pass that, then you get held back to the following cohort. It’s a lot of pressure! *hyperventilates*

So last night, I couldn’t sleep. I just felt like I didn’t study enough and I felt very anxious about it all. During the weekend, I tried to brush up on the terms and information I wasn’t confident on and wished for the best. It was also REALLY windy outside, which made it even harder to sleep. Sigh..

Morning came and I was so tired. I had no energy to do anything but I had to do what I had to do! I dragged my sleepy butt to school extra early so I could review a little bit more before the exam (and chow down my Mcdonalds lol). Remediation took place in a really small room next to the lecture hall we take exams in. It was stuffy, warm, and I’m pretty sure I was inhaling everyone else’s CO2. HELP. There was 10 of us who remediated and that room definitely was not made for 10 nervous people. yikes..

The exam started and oh my goodness I was like, wtf is this? I definitely planned to use the whole 90 minutes even if I finished early. I didn’t want to do bad later and regret not using the given time. Question after question, I felt half good and half bad. Towards the end of the exam, I started having a panic attack. I’m not sure if it was my fear of “failing” again or the fact that the room had 10 people in it and I was suffocating. But I made it through the exam and I just let the timer run til the end.

Next came the evidence based review. There were a couple students who were borderline “failing” so we definitely had to EBR as many questions as possible.

Evidence based review is where we try to argue against questions that we feel could be worded better or have another answer and we find evidence to prove it. This could be from textbooks, the ATI books, or the module summaries the prof gave us.

I actually passed without the EBR and it was a relief! I missed 4 out of 60 which might be the best score I’ve ever gotten without team points. But it made me think about how I probably could have done this the first time if I knew how to study for assessment 1. We all agreed that the remediation exam was harder than the official exam. For a lot of the questions, I stared at it like ..um..am I supposed to know this? For example, diabetic neuropathy. I didn’t even read that section but luckily, I was able to use critical thinking and think my way through it. GAH that assessment is DONEZO.

For some reason, I always get a headache after being at school for too long. I’m not sure if it’s the air or just the environment but damn, I always need to have my backpack ibuprofen with me. What? You have your backpack chapstick and I have my backpack ibuprofen! 🙂

hehe welp, I will resume to vlogging tomorrow once I’m well rested. We start cardio and it sounds difficult. I also have my video assessment on Thursday for medication administration, which if you’ve seen my vlogs, I’m pretty nervous but okay about it. Wish me luck! But for now, I’m off to bed. Signing off from this blog post, I hope you have a beautiful day and don’t forget to shine bright, you’re beautiful! Thanks for reading! ✨

 

Peace out.✌

❤ , TIFF

Real Nurse (R.N.) in the making.

 

psst… check out my last post here!

psst…I just cried my eyes out watching Me Before You! That movie always gets me 😦

I never want to remediate again. Pls no. YIKES.

---

Where to find meh ♥ :

Youtube: @letiffanyshow

Pinterest:@letiffanyshow

Tumblr: http://teafaakneeshow.tumblr.com

Twitter: @letifffanyshow