Mr. BSN

Hey eveyone! Well I got some good news and some bad news! The good news...I'm finished with nursing school and have earned my BSN (bachelors of science in nursing). So we had a special pinning ceremony for the graduating nursing students, so enjoy some of the pictures! The other pictures were from a sweet class pool party we had after the final exam! The bad news....I'm not a student anymore and therefore this blog must come to an end at somepoint. Okay so I'm not going to end it now, I will keep you up to date until I pass NCLEX and get a job, but the posts will be less often (even though I wasn't the best at posting in the first place)! However, look for another post soon!

Let the COUNTDOWN begin!

So you know when you were a kid and it was around Christmas time, you made the red and green paper chains to count down the number of days before it was actually Christmas. Yeah, you remember! Well I have one rocked out amazing friend from nursing school who has created a nursing paper chain to count down the days until graduation. So the countdown actually just didn't begin...it has been going on now for over two hundred days. It has just been more apparent lately because now the chain is so small (and that last picture was from a few days ago!) Oh how I love my nursing classmates...and I am truly going to miss them. This is one part of the end of school I am not looking forward too. Enjoy the pictures of the progression! And I am writing more after so scroll down and keep reading!


So this last week of nursing school has actually been quite stressful, but I'm getting through it. Day by day things are being done and ending and a little of the pressure feeling on my chest is being taken off.

Sunday night was my last night of clinical with my preceptor in the PICU at Helen Devos Childrens Hospital. Although it was sort of strange because my preceptor wasn't there. Since there were so few patient they had to call off a lot of the staff, and so I was paired with another nurse. My preceptor still came in and did his final evaluation of me and said encouraging words which was great since when I got there and figured out that my preceptor wasn't there I started to freak out because of all the things that need to be finished up on the last day.

Then today (Tuesday) was our group presentation. We did our presentation on the best evidence based practice of discharge planning. So glad to have that done, and it was the last presentation I ever have to do with school!

So all I have left now is one day of classes tomorrow and the final exam on Friday at 9. Not looking forward to that, but who ever is looking forward to taking a test. Although I am ready for it be done with! Bash with a splash party after the exam to celebrate!

ONE WEEK LEFT!!!!

If you can read, and you read the title....than yeah, it's a no brainer, I'm totally excited because we only have one week of school left!!! This past week has been busy, but manageable as everything starts to wrap up. I got the grade back from my capstone paper on Wednesday and am quite happy with that score. We also took a test called the HESI. It is a practice NCLEX test (the test you have to pass to get your nursing license) and it is suppose to help you identify the areas that you need to practice in...I didn't do too bad, but not as well I was hoping for either. Apparently I rock at community health, pediatric, and psychiatric questions and suck with labor and delivery and medications.

I have one more 12 hour shift to do with my preceptor this weekend in the PICU and then I will be all done with getting my 108.5 professional practicum rotation hours.

This coming week is going to be a busy one. Tuesday we have to do a group presentation....not looking forward to this at all. Wednesday we have our last full day of class. Thursday will be spent studying, and Friday we have our final exam. Then Saturday we have our nursing pinning ceremony meaning that we graduated from GVSU's nursing program! Lots to look forward to!

Capstoning

So I'm going to make this short and sweet because I got to get back to working on my capstone paper. My leadership clinical has been going very well. I have been spending more time in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) as they have been quite busy, so we aren't getting pulled to other units quite so much. I have been able to get to see some pretty cool stuff. Theory class has been pretty boring as we talk about common sense stuff... change, conflict management, health economics, complexity.

Anyway my life this past week and half has been composed of working on this capstone paper if I am not in class, in clinical, or working (besides a little vacation break over the fourth of July which was well deserved). The paper is due on Wednesday and has been consuming my life. Dishes are getting piled up and clothes (well lets just say I find them everywhere). And stacks of paper are taking over the floor.

This capstone paper is the last paper that we have to write for nusring school and is sort of like the last final big project. We had to pick a topic from Health People 2020 (if you don't know what that is I encourage you to google it, and find out!) to write about. I picked sleep health related to adolescents. There are certain things that we have to address in our paper that require a lot of research which leads to a lot reading and research articles which then, if appropriate, are put into the paper. So yeah it is a big task and a significant part of our grade. Right now for the most part I have the majority of if written and have to do the editing and all that type of stuff. I hope you enjoy the pictures! (okay so the picture uploader isn't working...check back and I'll try again later)

Leadership Clinical off to a Good Start

So my first week in my clinical leadership was awesome! Just to refresh your memory in-case your thinking, what in the world does clinical leadership mean, clinical leadership is my last clinical rotation in which I follow around and help do the task of a particular registered nurse for a total of 108.5 hours. The nurse that I am assigned to is based in the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit), however he is also a critical care float nurse for the hospital so if they need him on another unit that is were he goes, and I go with him! My nurse works the 7pm to 7am shift so figuring out how to get an appropriate sleep schedule down has been a little challenging.
So first just let me say that the new Helen Devos Children's Hospital is an amazing and beautiful building! The first night I worked with my nurse he was pulled to the hematology/oncology pediatric floor. Well if you know anything about me this particular area has been kinda like one of places that I really want to work in so it was awesome to be able to get a chance to be there! Then for my second night my nurse got pulled to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and we took care of three tiny little precious babies. That was also a great experience! This week I will be working three 12 hours shift with my nurse three days right in row so I hope I can survive!
Theory has been going well. The first test actually went really good, and I was super excited about the grade that I got! I have been trying to get a start on my capstone paper and that is coming along slowly. It is so exciting that I will be done with school in about a month!!!

Everything nursing.

2 weeks is too long, and I am truly sorry that I have allowed this much time to pass by without giving you an update. I think the title of this post sums it up pretty well - Everything nursing. In a nutshell everything in my life this past month, especially this past week and a half has mainly revolved around nursing. In my last post I had explained how I was experiencing some bumps in the road during this course. Good news is that most of the bumps have been smoothed out, bad news is the stress of nursing school without bumps has continued to increase.

Let me share some of the good news: I was able to be placed with a new nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit (!) for my clinical leadership rotation which I will actually start this week Wednesday! I am very excited for this! Our Community Health rotation is now done and we finished that rotation with teaching the residents about awareness to a heart attack and stroke and also taught them how to do hands only CPR after the eight of us nursing students were certified as leaders to teach this class. Both of those went really well and it is wonderful to think that only one rotation is left until we have a BSN. However, our group still really misses Stephanie.

The Bad news: We have a presentation to do Tuesday (Tomorrow) in front of our classmates and nursing faculty about the teaching lesson we did with the residents at Mount Mercy. Wednesday we have our first test in theory which I still don't have a clue as to how to study for. I have to finish a medication calculation test, work on my LEI timeline project, finish scheduling my clinical days, and not to mention I have barely had any time to work on my capstone paper....plus all of this is happening as I move. That's right I got my own place (well apartment) and have been moving in and slowly unpacking.

I will be so glad when things slow down a little bit, and I am able to relax an breathe. But I'm almost there I got to remember that. Less than 50 days now!

The bumps just keep coming...and all I want them to do is go away.

To be honest with you all I have no idea how I have managed to get past the last few weeks without having a significant emotional response unlike the norm. I think that being in the last semester and having very little motivation after going to school for such a long time without a large break has made me just take the things that come at me without feeling an enormous amount of stress. I keep continuing to experience all these stupids bumps in the road and I just wish they would away. For example, I found out this week that the preceptor (a nurse) I was assigned to, to do my leadership rotation with in the pediatric intensive care unit is no longer being a preceptor. So what does that mean for me...unlike all my other nursing friends who know where they are doing their leadership rotation and with who, and have been able to start scheduling to get their clinical hours...here I sit stuck. I'm not able to start setting a schedule because I don't know where I am going to be or who I am going to be with and its just a little bit frustrating. I have no idea if I will even get to be in the PICU still which is a huge bummer.

On another note clinical has been going okay. It is really sad to not have Stephanie with us anymore; however, each of knows that she needs to take the time to heal before she comes back. Meanwhile the course coordinator is filling in for her. Her name is Marilyn and is pretty great too. But when you get a course coordinator for your clinical professor its a little different because things seem more strict. But it has been going well.

Theory has been okay. Quite boring actually...still. I hope it starts to pick up. Capstone paper is underway (well not the actually writing part) but I have selected a topic and am in the process of searching and reading a number of research articles. I chose to write my paper on sleep health, particular in the adolescent population. Alright, thats all for now...funny to think that we are already starting the 5th week of the semester. How time flies.