Hospital Orientation

It has been an exciting week in my world!!!! Well some of it was :-). After spending an AWESOME Memorial Day weekend at an agility trial with my dog (she did REALLY well, but I won't digress), I hit the ground running on Tuesday with hospital orientation. Tuesday and Wednesday were each 8 hours of agony as I was required to sit through general orientation AND clinical orientation for the second time at the same hospital. I tried very hard to look on the bright side, and make the best of it because it was after all the beginning of my new career!! I did learn a few things: playing a 3/5 or a 5/9 is NEVER a good idea in Texas Hold-em, the White jewel in Bejeweled 2 is worth the most points, and I really like Pac-Man. I also got to practice tying up my fellow orientee's, and I think we probably have the BEST hospital education director on the planet...she ROCKS!!! Various and sundry other tasks were performed over the course of those 2 days, but I will not bore you with the details for fear that I might lose your attention to a game of Texas Hold-em or Pac-Man.

Thursday was Nursing Orientation, and while it was about as exciting as a good swift kick to the head, we did learn LOTS of very useful information. I guess it is better to get all of the housekeeping stuff out of the way first so that when we do start on our units there will be more time for the meat and potatos so to speak. Pharmacy, Laboratory, Pain management, Wound Care, Surgery Services, Respiratory, and the Critical Care Nurse Specialist all came in and talked to us about their roles in the hospital, and our responsibilities to their specific departments. It was a good general overview of the day to day operations, and how they affect the nursing staff. We also got to have a short Graduate Nurse Orientation where they gave us our rounding schedules and talked to us about what was expected of us over the next 10 weeks.

A little bit about our GN program. It is a 10 week program with classroom, unit clinical, and off unit clinical experiences. We have 18 new grads, and 3 people to act as our GN team leaders (One for our Med-Surge nurses, one for the specialties (Ortho, Peds, Oncology, etc.), and one for the critical care areas and the heart hospital). We are signed up to attend basic EKG, 12 lead EKG interpretation, ACLS/PALS, and various other classes depending on our specialty. We have off unit clinical time with PT/OT, Wound and Ostomy Care, Repiratory Therapy, the Diabetes Educator, and some of us spend a day in the OR, a day in the PACU, and a day with the RT learning about Vents. Each week we also have a 4 hour GN enrchment seminar in which different speakers come in and talk to us about stuff like Documentation, Time Management, Medications and Mecication errors, and other things of importance to new grads. All of that, and we still have to do 2-3 shifts a week on our unit with our preceptor, so it will be a busy 10 weeks. At the end of the 10 week new grad internship, we have a skills validation fair and a new grad congratulations luncheon, and then we are sent back to our units to either finish up our unit orientation, or to start with our own patient assignments. Those of us in critical care areas then immediately start with the critical care class and rotation which is very similar to the new grad internship, except with critical care concepts. I will talk about that more once it gets a bit closer.

Most of the GN's have to do 7a-3p Monday through Friday for the first few weeks, but because my orientation will run a bit differently, I am doing 7p-7a 12 hour shits 2 nights a week, and then coming in during the day for the off unit stuff. This is going to make the next few weeks kinda crazy, so I really wanted to jump in and start some of my off unit experiences. I signed up to spend 8-4 on Friday with the wound/ostomy care nurses, and boy was that an experience. We spent about 30 minutes going over the different skin care and wound protocols at the hospital, as well as the different products we use, and then we set off on rounds. We saw all sorts of pressure ulcers, fungal rashes, diabetic ulcers, and even an amputation that had gotten infected when the patient went home and they had to come back and get a wound vac (which was really cool). I have great respect for anyone that can spend their days elbow deep in all sorts of infected ulcerated sores and still come back for more. Our wound care nurses have a passion for what they do, and I am glad because it is not my idea of an awesome career :-). I did learn a TON, and I can now stage, measure, photograph, and document all sorts of wounds and ulcers, can tell a fungal rash from a yeast rash, and know more about the different types of mattresses the hospital has available than I ever thought possible. It was a very good day, and if you have a wound/ostomy nurse at your hospital, I would HIGHLY recommend trying to spend a day with him/her...it really is a great learning experience. After my time with our wound care nurse, I spent a couple of hours in my unit working on the pile of paperwork and education packets that I have that seems to keep growing no matter how quickly I get them done. It was a productive time, as I finally finished the 3" thick PACU study module and test, so I don't have that hanging over my head any more. Within 2 minutes of finishing that, my manager handed me our Cardiovascular Care Manual (with 4 tests of course), and our Cardiovascular Surgery Manual (with 5 more tests)...Will it ever end?????

This post has become another small novel, so I will end here. I am going to do another one in the next day or so though because last night I REALLY started my nursing career, and spent my first 12 hour shift on my unit, with my preceptor, and even took a patient...sort of :-). Check back soon!!