Mediocre Impressions

OB and Peds are okay. Upperclassmen always told me it was a "nice break", but I'm neither relieved nor inspired.

I'm a little frustrated; I study for OB and Peds equally but have an A in one and a C in the other. I partially blame the C on the ridiculous lecture format for that course. My instructor spends the first 45 minutes of each class talking about how to study and very little time actually talking about what it is we should be studying. More often than not diseases just... aren't discussed. It's frustrating; so Meredith, Cris, and I have started making up our own chapter outlines every week in an attempt to create USABLE notes. After classes on Thursday, we just park it in the library and don't leave until we finish reviewing everything.

I miss Instructor Incredible's class. At least I learned things in there, and never felt sleepy.

My clinical experiences have been somewhat disappointing as well. I spent several days in Labor and Delivery without seeing a single birth. Then, on my LAST day there I got to witness a C-section. It was horrifying to behold because the epidural... uh... well it wasn't working. That lady was kinda screaming and fighting them. They had to hold her down in order to push general anesthesia meds... but by the time they got her under, the surgeons were already cutting through the uterus. I observed all this while pressed up against the back wall with several other speechless students. Apparently this was a very unusual occurrence, but since it was the only live birth I've ever seen, my perceptions of the process will forever be skewed. This has only confirmed my extreme distaste for labor-type nursing.

Peds is disappointing mostly because I am being held on such a short leash. We aren't even giving meds! I understand the caution with which one must treat kids... but I feel like too much of my time is spent sitting idly by rather than providing care. Also, my patience with children is fairly thin, but my patience with parents is even less substantial.

In short, I'm not having the fabulous time I was used to having. That's probably more my fault than anyone else's. Therefore I'm going to have to work especially hard at observing Instructor Exhausted and Instructor Technology if I'm going to uncover the gems of wisdom I previously found so abundant. In the meantime, I look to my Nurse Tech job as a source of inspiration.