The first rule of Nursing School is: you do not talk about nursing school. The second rule of Nursing School is: you DO NOT talk about nursing school. It is essentially just like Fight Club, except none of the future murses look like Brad Pitt. Seriously though, this feels like a HIPPA violation. Should I be signing a consent form before I type this? I'll throw in one of these for good measure: "This blog is a work of fiction* The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writers imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to
be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events,
locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."
We'll keep it vague. I am a nursing student at University in the Wedding Capital of the World. Today we hit the 7 week mark. A milestone worth celebrating, no? Raise a Styrofoam cup of Diet Coke with me to toast the occasion? Shall we clink stethoscopes? Okay, no. What this week essentially marks is the start of Fundamentals of Nursing or Fundies. Yes, occasionally courses have pet names. It remains to be seen if it will be FUNdamentals or FUndamentals. The jury is still out.
The 3 most important things I have learned in the last 3 days are as follows: #1. Having a Southern accent does not necessarily make you nice, ya'll. Do not be fooled. #2. "You can't fix stupid". #3. B-52 is not just a band with chart topping hits. It is also a chemical restraint cocktail involving Benadryl, Haldol, and Ativan. As the B-52's song goes "Your dang good stuff that's tried and true."
Fundamentals encompasses some of the following skills: Foley Catheter Insertion, Wound Packing, Enemas, Bed Baths, and NG Tubes. Jealous? Obviously we do not practice the bulk of these skills on our fellow students. Instead we watch a large volume of videos and practice on mannequins. In the videos humans practice on other humans and awkwardness ensues. After 40 minutes of watching videos on catheter insertion I have just one question: what is the pay scale on that "modeling job"? Like in the nude professions caste system where does that one rank?
We will be practicing Bed Baths on each other. As a kid I always dreamed about a "Wear Your Bathing Suit To School Day." As an adult the execution is somewhat different and the prospect less thrilling, but potentially more hilarious. Stay tuned for that.
We did get to play with SimMan for the first time. Although, today he was rocking a military haircut, fairly distinct pec muscles, and lady parts. Perhaps he should be known as SimShim or SimShe-Man. It's a man, man.
That is it for this installment of Adventures in Nursing School. I need to put an end to the procrastination madness and get back to work. At least 50 pages of reading still await. If only procrastination did actually lead to me being older and wiser! M&D consider this a Wellness Check. I am alive and mostly sane.
