Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Scenes From A Nursing School
Ahh, the never-ending semester-of-cruel-and-unusual-torture has finally wound down to the last two weeks. As it winds down, we all wind up to finish all those last minute projects, papers and of course, exams. Before I resort to throwing myself into traffic from a certain a pathophysiological conditions class that eternally makes no sense and will no doubt get someone killed in the near future from the sheer amount of bad information being propagated (but I digress), I thought I might take a moment to reflect on some of the finer aspects of the post-Thanksgiving semester-end weeks.
Work Experience:
* Crips, gang member 1998-present
*Skills: Capping over 10 homies per minute, fluent in street lingo and yo mama.
But I bet you even money they don't even get employer-matched 401K benefits or paid holidays. Frankly, it wasn't the choice I would have thought to round out the whole list there.
In an effort to bolster my mood and shake the generally sour expression I'm sure I was wearing, I decided to make-like-a-psych-patient and sing all the Christmas carols that were coming on the radio (regardless, in some cases, of my ability to correctly remember the words). The patients LOVED it. The other nursing students HATED it. More importantly, my professor thought I was being particuarly therapeutic and encouraged me to continue. I aim to please.
Maybe he held hands with me, not knowing any better, because he wasn't in the arts and crafts session that morning listening to me make a holiday-tabulous fool of myself. He may have not wanted to be associated with seemingly the craziest person on the unit today.
- A fellow student (not a particular favorite fellow student) piped up (as she is wont to do frequently in 170 minute classes -- no, it's not me -- but good guess!) to answer what professions are most likely to suffer from PTSD, or better known: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. AND I QUOTE, "Well, it's mostly, like, you know, people with stressful work enviornments. ER nurses, first responders and gang members."
Work Experience:
* Crips, gang member 1998-present
*Skills: Capping over 10 homies per minute, fluent in street lingo and yo mama.
But I bet you even money they don't even get employer-matched 401K benefits or paid holidays. Frankly, it wasn't the choice I would have thought to round out the whole list there.
- Today's trip to the psych ward was an especially Holiday-tastic one. With more students than in-patients, we were admittedly a little oppressive in our want-to-nurse-you-til-you're-all-better-ness. We spent the entire morning helping geriatric psych patients put together neat little holiday arts and crafts (ahh, my specialty). It's amazing that we got anything done -- what with certain professors complaining that there wasn't any Judaic representation on the craft table -- regardless of the fact that there wasn't any Christian representation on the craft table either. Frosty, mugs of coco, flakes, gingerbread men and winter-wear. (I'm betting that since she asked me to define, then demonstrate "hip hop" dance to her today, {I stuck to the first request and advised her it was better for everyone involved that I not adhere to the latter} -- that she's completely unaware of blogs and the tendancy of students to negatively portray them therein.)
In an effort to bolster my mood and shake the generally sour expression I'm sure I was wearing, I decided to make-like-a-psych-patient and sing all the Christmas carols that were coming on the radio (regardless, in some cases, of my ability to correctly remember the words). The patients LOVED it. The other nursing students HATED it. More importantly, my professor thought I was being particuarly therapeutic and encouraged me to continue. I aim to please.
- Later in the day I encountered an older male patient who was being treated for dementia and severe depression. It might be a combination of the very real way that I miss my Gran everyday even though he passed over 10 years ago, the way they always look so helpless, the way I think I must remind them of someone by the way they interact with me, but I have such a soft-spot for old men. The night nurse told me that he was very tearful and would cry most of the day. He slept all morning and so I spent the afternoon talking to him but carefully picking topics that wouldn't launch him into tears. It's pretty brutal seeing a very grown, very elderly and very sad man cry. And it wasn't even a cry. It was the saddest, most desolate and most hopeless wimper. After several minutes of not knowing exactly how to communicate with him or better yet, just keep him from crying, I just grabbed his hand in mine. He immediately squeezed, looked me in the eye and smiled a wide, denture-less smile. We held hands for most of the rest of the day. We went to the afternoon exercise activity together. We high-fived and we held hands. This man couldn't tell you what he had eaten for lunch today, but he felt better when I held his hand.
Maybe he held hands with me, not knowing any better, because he wasn't in the arts and crafts session that morning listening to me make a holiday-tabulous fool of myself. He may have not wanted to be associated with seemingly the craziest person on the unit today.
# posted by Cathy @ 9:22:00 PM 
