Luke and Rachel: August 13, 2015 ~ I'M DONE WITH NURSING SCHOOL

At 6:30pm on Thursday August 13th I was officially DONE with nursing school! I got out of my leadership final at 6:30 and it was the oddest feeling knowing that I am done with school FOREVER (if I don't do a masters). I am done with homework assignments, paying the school to do clinicals (free labor), and studying for hour after hour and day after day. I calculated it once and the week before an exam, just the WEEK before the exam not including class time, I spent more then 24 hours studying, in one week!! And now I am done with all of that! They really pushing us until the last day though. The week of finals we had two presentations, our final on Thursday and then we have our pinning ceremony tomorrow, on Friday. Luckily the leadership final wasn't too hard because I didn't have much time to study at all. Not to mention it was like a hurricane and if it wasn't for driving moms four wheel drive car I wouldn't have made it to class! The on ramp to the wagon wheel exit was flooded and driving on the freeway you couldn't see more then 100 feet in front of you. But I survived the storm and I survived nursing school!!

May 14th 2015 was the first day of class for the last time ever

May 21st we went to a Nevada State Board of Nursing meeting. It was very interesting...at first. We had to go to the meeting from 8am to 5pm but luckily they let us out early and we were out of there by 4pm. But the meeting was set up like a court for the first half, people were brought before the panel to plead for their license. One nurse stole IV fluid and was pleading for her license. For the most part the penalties were the same, a fee of a couple hundred dollars and 30 or more hours of classes included ethics classes. After lunch (yummy Mexican food with Blair, Tiffany and Shauna) the meeting went down hill and became a snooze fest.

July 10, 2015 Last Simulation lab ever! As part of orientation before starting our preceptorship we had sim lab. For my last simulation lab I had to take care of a patient that just got the diagnosis of terminal cancer and was told she had less then 6 months to live. I went in, did my assessment and then listened to the patient cry. I comforted the patient, listened to her concerns and let her know there were resources available to her such as support groups and that she wasn't alone. I kept listening and talking to the patient and made sure no medication was due and the scenario kept going and nothing was happening. After the scenario was over I learned that the only thing that I was supposed to do I did, I treated the patient holistically and listened. I was so confused while in the room because something bad always happens to the patient's health but not this time. But everyone applauded me when I cam in and stated that they would want me as a nurse if they were dying. It was a good simulation to end on. Kritcha and Blair on the other hand weren't so lucky. They got to manage 4 patients at once in their simulation. All we could do was watch and laugh because everything that could go wrong did! Ruby Wertz was dressed up as a patient and was wondering around the rooms then fell, another professor acted as an upset wife that wanted to take her husband AMA. Blair and Kritcha had the option to call for a CNA, Respiratory therapy and a charge nurse but it still was crazy! Another scenario was where a patient died and they had to prepare the body. All the scenarios were good learning experiences.

The 4 patient scenario. That is Ruby laying on the floor because she fell. Patti was a CNA that couldn't do an assessment (because she is a CNA) to see if she was okay so she just gave her a pillow to make her comfortably, we were all laughing when we were watching her do that on the TV. Kritcha was the nurse in this scenario.

August 3rd was my last clinical ever! Amy was a good preceptor. She was very efficient and taught me good time management skills but I do admit she was a negative Nancy. She was constantly complaining and didn't like her floor manager. I took it as a learning experience and learned that you have to have a good working environment in order to thrive and to stay away from negative people. I was eager and happy to learn and help and learned a lot but by the end of the preceptor I was happy to get away from that environment.

August 5th, 6th and 7th we had an NCLEX Live review class. I felt it was very helpful to review things but other classmates felt otherwise. I do admit that I am so happy that I had the cohort I did! We had the NCLEX review with the excellerated track and the regular track and one of the girls in the other tracks had a nervous hiccup every couple minutes. She said that it started after her preceptorship and she would hiccup without fail anytime the NCLEX instructor would say, okay time for an NCLEX style question. It was funny at first but then got on everyones nerves because NCLEX review from 8am to 4pm for 3 straight days is long as it is.