A home stretch… of sorts
Spring break came and went. I accomplished… well, very little, in all honesty. I read a couple books (accidentally got an “inspirational” novel at the library… I tried to give it a chance, but it just sucked), took some mid-afternoon naps on the couch, and was generally lazy. But I did get an oil change and tire rotation for the car (and found out I need a brake job, yippee), changed the furnace filter (two months late… amazing any air was going through that thing with all the cat fur clogging it), and replaced a light bulb under the microwave (you may scoff, but I’ve discussed the trauma of this before). Did some minor socializing, too. I went to the mall with one of my classmates and managed to not buy anything (helps that this particular mall caters to people half my age). She and I also got some people together for a pub night, which was a lot of fun… any night involving friends, a Habs win over the B’s, a Black and Blue, and a Stout Woody has to be good, right? FYI, Black and Blue = Guiness + Sea Dog Blueberry Ale, and a Stout Woody = Guiness + Woodchuck cider, and yes, I mostly ordered them because of their names, but they were good even if they did wake me up with indigestion in the middle of the night. Saturday was early Easter with the fam. So all in all, it was a restful break.
Now it’s back to school with the end of the semester beginning to pull into sight. I anticipate that by the end of the first week in May I’ll be done. I haven’t found this semester to be nearly as arduous as the past ones, so I don’t think that I’ll have my regularly scheduled mini-meltdown, but there are a few things lined up. I need to write a presentation proposal for my health systems & leadership class, then actually do the presentation. I’ve decided to do mine on patient satisfaction since it’s an area that we look at in my clinical and I figure I can speak somewhat intelligently about it even before I get my resources nailed down. For epidemiology & decision-making I have another test at the end of the semester, but I got a 95 on the first one, and it should be similar, so I’m not stressed about that. Then our CNL class is just more of the same with journals (one of which I’m procrastinating finishing at this very moment!) and one more class to co-convene. And of course, clinical… I have completed more than half my hours, so I’m in good shape for that.
So, this is a nice relaxing semester, except for the fact that once it’s over, it’s NCLEX time. I’m hoping to take it as soon as I possibly can, though I’m not sure when exactly that will be. Which means, I should probably start studying for it. A lot of people in my class are already starting to stress. I just can’t seem to work myself up to that point. I am not a test-stresser. I suck at studying. I am good at tests. Which isn’t to say that I don’t have a niggling fear that this is the one time that attitude will come bite me in the ass. But that small fear isn’t substantial enough to motivate me. On the plus side, however, I am a standardized testing nerd… ever since I can remember I have found fill-in-the-bubble tests fun. Maybe I’ll find fill-in-the-bubble practice questions fun, too? Guess it’s worth a shot.
My main stress right now involves trying to find a job, both as an RN and something to tide me over until such a job begins (most new grad programs start around July 1 or so, but I think the financial aid runs out right around the end of May, so… I need something to pay the interim bills with!). I’ll admit that kept me up last night ruminating. I hate worrying about where the money is going to come from. But then I look back with amazement that I’ve pulled this off. For over a year now I’ve done this full-time grad student thing with no income. I’m under the same roof I started under, the car still runs, and I’m not starving. I’m reminded of something I heard Suzy Orman say to a caller into her radio show once about how lucky the person was to have taxes to pay. I have to pay high property taxes? Well, hey, that means I have property to pay taxes on. Cool. Those student loans that are going to need to be repaid? Um, there’s the master’s degree to go along with it, not to mention the education (not the same thing as a degree) which one can’t really put a dollar figure to. The brakes need to be replaced? Well, if that’s the worst of my car woes, so be it! I might be scrimping for a month or two while I get my first RN job nailed down? Hey, beats not having any marketable job skills or skills that will only afford me a minimum wage existance. Who’s lucky? Oh yeah, that’s right, I am. 
Hey look! A patient…
… and here I thought they were extinct after not seeing any this semester.
This week I’ve been floating to some units since my preceptor is away on vacation. I love field trips, even thought it’s entailed me busting out the dippy polo shirts. Tuesday I was with the clinical leader of a telemetry unit, which was moderately interesting. I really liked the people on that floor, but it was different from my prior telemetry experience. This summer I had been on a telemetry floor of a hospital known for its cardiac care during part of my med-surg rotation and things seemed far more rigorous there. Here… I dunno, I don’t think it’d be the first place I’d want to work if my calling was cardiac care. But it was nice to see what the clinical leader does on the floor. I also got a chance to talk to the unit manager who comes from a maternity background. She gave me some uplifting advice, telling me that if what I wanted to do was work with sick babies, then I should go straight for it, that nothing else would prepare me for that. It was nice to hear after getting the old saw from the veteran nurses that “you really have to do at least a year of med-surg when you get out.”
I spent last evening with the clinical leader of the emergency department. It was funny to find out that she had started out as an accountant prior to getting into nursing. I found the ER to be okay, but a little too disorganized for me (at least this one was), plus way too much psych for my interests. I think I’d like it if it was all traumas. I can deal with blood and gore just fine. It’s the “I think I’m having a heart attack, can I have some jello?” that bugs me. If you’re having so much chest pain that you think you’re having a heart attack you’re not going to give a hoot about jello or anything else aside from getting your ticker taken care of. Argh.
At the very least it’s been interesting to see how this hospital is utilizing nurse leaders. It’s a new role here, as in most places, and people are still trying to sort it out. The ED leader has only been there a couple months and she gave me some great advice as to how she’s handled stepping into a role that didn’t exist on the evening shift prior to her arrival and doesn’t really have a set job description. She suggested that if I’m ever in that position to ask the staff what they would like from a nurse leader as it’s really opened her eyes about what’s needed and helped her to figure out how to tailor her role. Throughout the past couple days I’ve found myself becoming more vested in this whole clinical nurse leader thing. It’s nice when all the pieces of the puzzle start to sort themselves out and create a bigger picture. I’m finally getting away from the feeling of “I’m getting a master’s degree in nursing, and no, I have no idea what that will qualify me to do.”
Tomorrow I get to spend my day in the birthing center which I am very excited about. I’ll be working with a woman who is both an NP and a clinical instructor for another area nursing school, but who works as a staff nurse at the hospital. She was surprised to find out that I never saw a vaginal birth in my maternity rotation, so I’m hoping that means that she’ll try to get me in to see one. I’m also hoping they have some babies in the special care nursery, just so I can see it in action (I went in there once before but they didn’t have any patients that day).
We had our first two tests of the semester this week. I just got my grade back on one and did fine on that. Still waiting to hear on the 2nd, but it was open-book, so I hope I managed to do okay. Other than that, spring break is just around the corner. I’m looking forward to having a week off and getting some things done. I need to work on my resume and start the job search in earnest. It seems like most places aren’t advertising for new grad positions yet, but I have a feeling that I need to try to do some networking and maybe get some informational interviews to get my foot in the door. I can’t wait to be employed once more!
50 lashes with a wet noodle
I have been terribly remiss in keeping this blog up-to-date. Sadly, it seems to reflect my general lack of motivation, though I’m hoping that things are on an upswing. I’m blaming part of this motivation issue on the fact that clinical feels so darned much like work. I don’t mean that in a bad way, just that clinical has never been this routine before. Generally we’d be on a floor for a day or two a week. Sometimes more, but not usually. And we were in our clump of students. It felt very “school.” Now, with my immersion experience, I’m on my own, one-on-one with my preceptor. I’m there 3-4 days a week. I’ve got projects to work on independently, so much so that when my preceptor called out sick a couple times over the past few weeks I was still able to put in a good amount of time doing work… not homework, but work for my site. I feel like I’m part of my preceptor’s department. It feels good, actually. It would feel better if I were being paid, but hey, I’ll take it. The problem is that I still have classes to prepare for, yet when I come home at the end of the day I feel as though I should be doing my normal, after-work routine: make dinner, sit, relax. Not make dinner, sit, study.
Another challenge this semester is that the class schedule seems to be very hard to keep track of. One class meets four Saturdays over the course of the semester. It’s hard to remember which ones! Another meets every other Monday morning. Again, hard to remember what week we’re on. The last one meets, theoretically, every Monday afternoon, but we’ve already had two out of the five off. Hard to remember what I’m supposed to be doing when.
I feel as though I’m starting to get into a stride, though. Yesterday I was able to sit down and read 3+ chapters of one of my leadership books. I am actually one of the few people in my class who likes this book, but I still find it hard to power through. Partly it’s because the author tends to be repetitive, and he says things over and over again, and he likes to repeat himself, and he often says things more than once. 
At some point one starts to drift off. Or get annoyed that he keeps saying “inculcate” or “cybernetics” or whatever. It’s fun to pull out a 25-cent word every once in a while, but it gets pompous and annoying when repeated every single page. My other problem when reading is that I will be reminded of things that happened in my old career or things that I’ve seen in clinical and then I start daydreaming. I guess this is good because it’s relating the theory to practice (ugh, I can’t believe I just said that after all my ranting about having to do exactly that when writing our damned reflective journals), but it definitely slows the reading process. For whatever reason yesterday I was able to maintain focus and get through it.
I’ve also been having a hard time motivating myself to keep the house clutter-free. I was pretty good about the little-bit-of-cleaning-every-day schtick for a couple months there, but that fell off at some point over break. I was able to maintain a few habits, one of the stranger ones being making my bed when I get up every morning. Who would think that one would stick?! But I’m trying to get myself back on the bandwagon. I did my weekly basic cleaning today and tonight set my timer for 15 minutes and managed to get through the two baskets of clean laundry that have been sitting on the floor of the bedroom for the past three weeks. Lots more to go, but hopefully I’m getting there!
Anyway, I will try to post more soon with some specifics about the semester and all that jazz.
