Staples and Sheet Cake.

Today was my last day in the OB clinical rotation. Holy cow has time flown by. Every day presented new challenges and opportunities, but today was an overwhelming day of big things.

The day started out with me completing a head to toe assessment on a mother and a baby while my clinical instructor watched. I was so terrified. All term the only thing I wished for when this moment came was that I wouldn't have to palpate a woman's fundus who had undergone a cesarean. Well, guess what. I did. And I felt terrible doing it. However, I passed the test and my mother wasn't in too terribly much pain so that was a success. Win!

I was then shuttled in to the "circ room" to watch a little tiny baby boy loose a little tiny piece of skin. Luckily for the baby, he slept through the entire thing. Even the giant lidocaine shot into his pee pee. If you didn't think about what was being cut, it wasn't so bad. But every once in awhile my mind would suddenly shift to "Oh mah gawd what are they doing!" Plus, the foreskin left over on the clamp when it was all over was kinda creepy looking. In the end, it only affirmed that I personally think circumcisions are unnecessary. I surely wouldn't want anyone cutting me in the nether regions. However, no judgments shall be passed to those who have them done.

The second major highlight of the day was that I got to remove staples from a cesarean patient about to go home. At the start of the term staples grossed me out. Then I saw them removed and felt better about them. Today, I full on pulled them out. It was actually a more traumatic experience than I would have hoped for. Because of different cultural traditions, my client was very vocal about pain. It's not that the staples being pulled were traumatically painful to her, it's just the way that that particular culture tends to express pain. Even knowing this, it doesn't help when its your first time and you are terrified to have a woman wailing and crying with every staple. It especially doesn't help when it makes her husband not trust you even more. My resource nurse said I did everything fine and did a really good job. So huzzah to me!

Small side notes:
-I got to remove a Foley catheter, no big deal but a first time is a first time
-I got to do discharge teaching which made me feel official but it was also awkward because it mostly felt like I was talking to myself.
-The closest I ever came to seeing a vaginal delivery is watching 16 and Pregnant on MTV. Damn. So, if you know anyone delivering vaginally hook me up. Cause it would be nice to know what it looks like.

The day ended with a surprise fiesta hosted by our faculty nurse. She bought a Costco cake. I got the corner piece with the most frosting. Today was a good day.

And so concludes my first term of clinical rotations. No more crowning head, next term is all about psych patients and "pits and pubes" with the elderly, as my faculty nurse so tenderly put it.

Stay tuned....