At this point of the semester I think I speak for all of this when I say that we are all exhausted! This semester has been the semester from hell and I am ready to get it over with. I have dealt with clinical, exams, quizzes, all while trying to work on the weekends and maintain a social life. It has been an interesting semester to say the least. Getting closer to finals week, I am really trying to focus on managing my time efficiently. I will have to take 3 finals during finals week and none of them will be easy. Im hoping to get through them with passing grades so I can enjoy my winter break! All this semester I have been working hard to reach this point in this semester and I am more than excited to finish it out strong.

As for everyone reading this that are struggling like me, you will get through this! This semester has been rough but it has prepared us for what is going to come next and we can all do this. Keep on fighting through and in 4 short weeks we will all be at home relaxing with our families, proud of how we were able to get through this crazy semester. We got this!

This semester not only do I have maternity clinical but I also have clinical at Rosemont Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home. Before the semester started I will admit that I was a little hesitant going into it. I knew that working with the geriatric population would be a challenge and it wasn’t my favorite thing to learn about so I had my doubts before going in. But once I got there and started making connections my whole opinion on caring for the geriatric population changed.

Besides the fact that the majority of our mornings consisted of helping the residents go to the restroom, giving them baths, and feeding them, I was able to form so many connections with the residents that I never expected. Through helping some of the residents with basic ADLs, I was able to hear about their lives before they were placed in the home along with how they were feeling that day. One resident even showed me her wedding album and through that we formed a very strong bond that I will never forget.

This Friday is our last clinical day at Rosemont and I am going to be sad leaving the residents. I formed such strong bonds with so many of the residents and made so many memories in the nursing home. My time at Rosemont changed my perspective on caring for the geriatric population and I am thankful that I was able to have this experience.

This Wednesday at my maternity clinical I experienced something that some nurses never get to experience in their whole career. Before going onto the floor for the day, my clinical instructor let us know that before we arrived that day there was unfortunately a fetal demise and we were going to be able to see the baby. At first I was extremely nervous because I didn’t know how I was going to react to seeing something so awful. Our clinical instructor prepared us by telling us that the baby was born at 29-weeks with anencephaly and cleft palate, and the one eye wasn’t formed to its full potential. The mom came in for her first prenatal visit at 29-weeks and had no fetal heart tones, so the doctors decided that it was in fact a fetal demise.

As we all sat and waited in the room for my instructor to wheel in the tiny baby, we were silent and taking time to reflect on what we were about to witness. Personally I was trying to prepare myself to see something so sad, but I was intrigued to see something so rare out of utero. When my instructor came back to the room, she removed the blanket from the top of the baby and we were able to get our first glimpse of it. It was shocking at first to see how bad of shape this baby was in but it was also interesting to see the different problems this baby was born with. It was interesting to see it in person rather than seeing a picture of it in the textbook.

After examining the baby, we took time to reflect on the experience and it was draining. I had the privilege of shadowing the charge nurse for the day on the unit so I was able to assist in the process of moving the baby from the labor and delivery floor to the morgue. The process came with a lot of paperwork and working with social work, the morgue, and the nurse that was assigned to the patient to properly complete the process. It was interesting to see how calm the different members of the team were in this whole process because it truly was stressful and draining.

My take away from clinical on Wednesday was that loss is a normal process in any section of the hospital and it is important to remain respectful to the family and to stay on task when handling the processes after the loss. Although it was an upsetting scenario, the charge nurse was able to explain everything to me in a way that opened my eyes to loss in a different way. I am thankful to have gotten this experience in my clinical practice because now I am more comfortable with loss and dealing with loss in the hospital.

I am almost halfway through the semester and I am absolutely loving both of my clinical sites! I have amazing professors and I have been able to experience so many hands on tasks that I am able to apply from my learning during lecture! My favorite experience so far has been when I was able to finally see a cesarean section at my clinical at HUP!

My clinical instructor for my HUP clinical always assigns us to different areas while we are at the hospital and I was luckily assigned to go an witness a cesarean section. I could feel my heart leaping through my chest with excitement and nervousness as I was putting on my gown, gloves, and surgical cap to enter the operating room. My professor was right being me the whole time whispering in my ear what was going on throughout the whole process and it was such an amazing experience to be a part of.

After the baby had entered the world, I was able to do baby vitals which includes heart rate, respirations, and temperature. I was very nervous to perform this task but after giving report to the nurse in the room and my instructor on what my findings were I felt like a real nurse! After doing vitals I had the privilege to give the baby his vitamin K shot and I was also able to do his new born footprints which was super cool. The whole experience was so riveting and it really made the whole clinical experience that much better. I look forward to learning and demonstrating more skills as the semester goes on!