In the Words of Mister Bon Jovi....Whoa, We're Halfway There

And so concludes a second term of clinicals and the first of two years of nursing school. Crazy, right? Especially since just a year and a couple of days ago I didn't even know I'd gotten into nursing school yet. My time this term in psychiatric and gerontological nursing wasn't event worthy enough to write a new post every week, so instead I will treat you with a comprehensive summary of each experience. I also don't feel like studying for finals quite this minute so this also is a good something else to do.

Psychiatric Nursing
Whether it's bad or good to say it, I was pretty disappointed when I found out the majority of my psych nursing time would be spent in a substance abuse rehabilitation center with the rest of it spent in a geriatric psych. unit. However, looking back I'm really glad I got the experience I did for a couple of reasons.

I have a much deeper understanding of addiction and the road to recovery than I would ever be able to receive in my education. This is significant because the rates of addiction in the general population are relatively high, and having a better understanding of the disease and the treatment will be applicable in any unit I decide to work in and will also make me a better advocate for my patients. That's a pretty empowering feeling too, so kudos rehab.

My time in the geriatric psych. unit was pretty interesting as well. It's a mental health unit for those over the age of 65, however my patient that I spent the most time with was 52. Honestly, I think it would take a very unique personality to work in that particular setting. People are agitated very easily and when they aren't agitated they spend most of their time wandering the hallways. The nursing staff were really good in this particular unit and knew how to keep patients calm and happy with simple tasks like folding napkins or helping push carts around. One of the days I was in gero psych, I was sitting having a perfectly normal conversation with a woman about the weather and breakfast when all of a sudden she turned to me and said "I don't think the bus driver knows where he's going, this doesn't look like Pennsylvania." It caught me off guard, but also underscored the way that patients with dementia can slip in and out of reality easily.

Overall, I know that psychiatric nursing is not in the cards for me, but I did get a lot of good experience this term with therapeutic communication and exposure to different mental health problems.

Gerontological Nursing
This was the term I had been dreading the most out of my two year program because I've always known that this is not my forte. I'm don't have a fear of aging in the sense that "oh no I'll have lost my youth" but I definitely have a fear of the inability to take care of myself and the physical changes that occur as a result of age. I thought that this term would help assuage these somewhat, but it really didn't until my professor pointed out that the majority of the elderly population don't live in assisted living facilities. It really did underscore the importance of taking care of yourself now instead of waiting until later.

One of the two patients I was the closest with was a man who had a stall in the Market until October when he fell and fractured his hip. He moved into the facility to heal up and begin walking therapy. He was a very quiet man who kept to himself but as the weeks progressed, he opened up and I even got him to laugh a couple times. Once, after I shaved his face I almost forgot the aftershave. He pointed this out to me, and I replied "Of course, you've got to smell fresh for the ladies!" He was greatly amused by this and it's these little moments that I will remember with him. Once he began his walking therapy I created a poster for him to keep track of his progress once I was gone. When I told one of my peers this she replied "A poster? You are such an RA!" Yup, I still am deep down inside an RA and I'm okay with that. On the last day I was going to hang up the poster in his room but was going to check his chart before I greeted him for the day to see how his walking had progressed in the past week. I learned that the night before he had a stroke and was sent to the ICU of a nearby trauma 1 hospital. The sense of loss I felt was very great and it was hard to not start tearing up right there. It was such an abrupt end to our relationship and just was so shocking given that he had been completely fine the week before. I hung up the poster in his room with a note anyways in hopes that he 1) returns to the facility and 2) is able to start walking therapy again.

The other patient was a 93 yo woman from New Orleans. Nothing major other than she was just your classic sassy and strong southern woman who liked a good game of poker. And for 93 she's in really good shape too. Her major health problem is vascular dementia that results in delusions of maggots in her food and a man who comes in her 3rd story window every night to knock over her plants and scuff up her carpet.

All in all, it was a fairly decent term and at the very least I know two areas of nursing that I'm not particularly interested in! Next term is a different story as I am very excited to be doing pediatrics, a specialty I was set on back in the days when I wanted to go to med. school.

Enjoy the summer, I'll be back in the fall!