Week 12 Almost There!

What?

This week we did not have class so there isn't much to say there. I am not going to be able to go to the conference in SLC, although I wish I could have.

Here are a few pictures from our service learning project that I forgot to post a couple of blogs ago. We really did have a lot of fun teaching these kids about nutrition.

I still need to get a move on with that paper. It is my job to begin it. Unfortunately I have to work in the morning so the paper might have to wait until tomorrow night or Saturday morning to get started.

I also learned this week that I definitely DO NOT want to be a psych nurse. I had a bad experience at clinicals due to a break down in therapeutic communication. I almost had a table flipped on me because another nurse spoke with a patient in the wrong way. That environment is a little bit too violent for me. 

Now What?

There's not really too much to say at all this week. I kind of feel like a broken record. I am definitely ready to have this whole project done with.

Now that I know I don't want to work in psych I can focus in on other areas of nursing that I am interested in. I feel like I can make more informed decisions about my career because I attend these clinicals. I don't remember if I said this before but I had a really really good experience with a CRNA at Timp hospital the other day. He really kind of took me under his wing and talked to me through an entire surgery. I might look into doing that in the future. But that is far in the future so I have a long time to consider it.

So What?

This semester is almost over and I feel like I have learned a lot. But I have also learned (mostly through ATI testing) that I have a ton left to learn before I graduate. I am excited for the next semester. I am really looking forward to complex disorders and mother-baby.

Hopefully my next blog will be titled "Service Learning Project is Complete!"

Week 11 - Relief....Well Kinda

What?

We finished our service learning volunteer hours and this has been the first week without that looming over my head. I had a paper to write and a couple of tests to do this week so I did not really focus on the service learning project. It was nice to not have to think about it for once this semester. I have most of the documentation of the project and I need to get started on writing the paper. My group is going to help out with the paper once I get it started. Unfortunately, I know that starting a paper is half of the battle. It is one of the hardest things, but it will get done.

In class this week we talked a lot about what life will be like when we are nurses. Most of what I remember is discussing finding jobs and the things we have to deal with (i.e. death) when we do work in a healthcare environment. I found this to be one of the most interesting classes we've had this semester. The fact that it was outside was not too shabby either.

So What?

So now I have to get off my lazy butt and start writing this paper so that my group can have a solid foundation for the paper. We also need to get together to discuss and practice how we are going to present our project to the class. I will admit, I am a little nervous about the presenting.

I find it very important to think about life after school. I have often thought about where I need to position myself professionally to reach my ultimate goals. I know that I want to go on to be a nurse practitioner of some sort but I need to figure out a specialty area so that I can work in that direction. My biggest problem is that I keep jumping around. One week I think I want to be a CRNA so I think aobut ICU jobs and the next week I'll think about being a CMA and look into labor and delivery jobs. The sometimes, out of nowhere, I think about being a pharmacist. I'm not quite sure where that one comes from.

Now What?

Now I will need to plan a time to work on my paper. I find that I get my work done best when I plan a big chunk of time to work on it. I think that working on something for hours at a time helps me to maintain focus on that one task. I think that I will be more successful with this project if I plan the time well.

I will also continue to explore my options of grad school. I don't have to decide what I want to be right now but I do need to consider all of my options so that I can best position myself in the correct job to get to where I'm going. I have already begun that process by working as a CNA at IMC. This has put me into a position where I can more easily get a job in a hospital as an RN. Even though it's hard to work like this and go to school, I do not think I will regret it.

Week 10- Finally Some Service Learning Hours!

What?

We completed the volunteer/teaching portion of our service learning project! It is an amazing feeling to be done with it! I have worried about it all semester. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. We taught several classes at American Fork High School about nutrition and reading nutrition labels.I thought that the students would be very difficult and that we would not have enough activities/lecture to fill the entire 80 minute blocks of the classes we taught.

We learned about essential oils in class this week. I have thought about getting some to help me relax but I didn't just want to buy some at a big retailer because I was pretty sure that those oils would not be as effective. I was surprised at how many oils there are and how many things they can do.


So What?

I think I learned a lot about myself during this teaching experience. I learned that I am not as shy as I thought I was. Speaking in public is really getting easier for me and I think that's because I have to force myself to do it all the time in my classes. I also learned a lot of organizational skills necessary for preparing lessons and activities for learning activities. It is definitely a lot of work and I gained a lot of respect for my teachers.

I learned that maybe essential oils are not for me. I have always been very sensitive to smells. Strong smells in particular give me very bad headaches. After being around the essential oils in class I learned that I might get headaches, not relaxation from using essential oils.

Now What?

Now all we have to do is finish up our project by putting together our presentation for class and writing our paper. I really do feel like the hardest part of this semester is over. I also believe that now I can be more confident in my abilities to present information in front of large crowds. The beginning of this project was a nightmare but now I am actually glad that I had to do it. I feel like I have grown a lot and learned a lot about myself by doing service learning at American Fork high school.

Since I don't believe the essential oils will work for me, I will have to find other ways to relax. I hope that when I do find a way to relax I will have far fewer headaches. Maybe I should start doing something like yoga. My parents did that for a while and they seemed to really like it.

Only 1 more month to go until 2nd semester is over! Only 1 more year until we're all registered nurses!

Week 9 - Preparing, Preparing, Preparing!

What?

We officially start preparing our lesson plan tomorrow morning! I'm starting to get more nervous the closer we get to actually doing the project. I'll be glad to get it over with. Then it will just be writing the fat paper and preparing for the final presentation. Those bits won't be so hard, I think. The hardest part of this project was simply finding one to do. Now it's just a matter of doing it and everything will be great!

In class we talked a lot about alternative medicines and health care provider's attitudes toward these types of care. There was a lot more of a heated debate than I expected. I'm not really sure where I stand on the subject because I have never really tried any kinds of alternative treatments.I have wanted to try them, though, so I think that now may be as good of a time as any to learn about these treatments.

So What?

So now I can stop worrying about this service learning project!

I do think that alternative treatments are something I should be knowledgeable about because a lot of people use these treatments and a lot of people have strong opinions on the subject. These treatments may also help me and my health. I think what I really need to focus on is reducing my stress level. I should figure out where to buy the essential oils for a good price and make time in my schedule for other activities such as yoga.

Now What?

Now I need to push through the last bit of the semester and get this project done. I am excited to be able to blog about something other than stressing about the project.

Now I need to find the time and energy to put into trying new methods of health care. If I can find something that works well for me then I may just become a firm believer in alternative treatments for common ailments.

Week 8 - Halfway There!

What?

The semester is halfway over and the only hours I have so for the service learning project are prep hours. I wonder if I could count the 6 weeks of looking for a project towards my hours....probably not. We got word from the teacher that we are working with that he wants us to teach about reading nutrition labels and important nutrients. This is a different from what I originally thought we were teaching but that's okay. I think that teaching about nutrition labels will be more challenging than teaching about eating disorders but I am up for the challenge.

We mostly discussed the test in class this week. I think that it helped a lot to talk about it because it helped to clarify the rationale behind some of the questions that I got wrong; even though most of those were dropped.

So What?

Reading nutrition labels is really important for young people to understand. Being able to read nutrition labels can help people to make better decisions about the food that they eat. When healthy habits are started young they are easier to maintain throughout the lifetime. I think that we will also bring in the nutrition facts of foods from popular restaurants. I hope that this will open the eyes of the kids to what they are really consuming when they eat their favorite foods.

I'm glad I got to see the questions that were dropped on the test. It made me more confident for the next test.

Now What?

I really need to brush up on reading nutrition labels. I was looking at a nutrition label the other day and I could only remember a few of the main points of reading labels. I think that it will also help to prepare more than enough material to cover the 80 minutes of each class. I would hate to run short of things to do and have a class of 30 teenagers just staring at me. I'm going to spend some time practicing the important points of the lecture. I often get nervous when speaking in front of people so I think that practicing will help calm my nerves and help me to remember everything I need to teach.

Now that I know the rationale behind a lot of the questions I can direct my studying in a different way. This will help me to do better on the next test. I think that I will have less anxiety about the next test as well because I already know the testing style.

Week 7- Not Too Much Goin' On

What?

Well we haven't started our service learning project because we are waiting for the teacher to tell the exact subjects he wants us to educate the students on. We have a couple of weeks left until we teach so it won't be so bad. I'm a little bit nervous about teaching high school students but I think that since there will be three of us there we will be alright.

We didn't have class this week due to the birth of a baby so there really is not anything to discuss in that area. I can't wait to go over the test so I can see how to improve for the next test. 

I just can't wait for this semester to be over so I can look back at how much we really accomplished. I'm really excited to move forward in the program and learn as much as I can before I get to be a nurse!

So What?

Well the "so what?" on our service learning project is that we actually have one that has not fallen through! So that's exciting, given our past luck. We can get this huge part of our grade done with and stop worrying about it! I swear I have spent more time worrying about hat project than I have spent worrying about every other assignment in all of our classes combined. But it will be over soon and my group will do well. That is my new mantra.

"So what" good is the test review? What a silly question! Test reviews are always useful in learning the professor's teaching and testing style. I will have a better idea of how to study for the next test.

The good part about moving on in the nursing program is being one step closer to my goal! Not to mention being more prepared for that ultimate goal!

Now What?

Now we wait. We wait for the high school teacher to send us the subjects so we can prepare our lesson plans. We wait for the day of our actual teaching (which is still undecided). We wait until we have enough information to write our ten page paper. We wait to prepare our powerpoint presentation. We wait to present our project in our final. We wait for the test review. We wait for the semester to be over. We wait to graduate from the nursing program. We wait for success.

Now we wait.

Week 6 - Finally!

What?

We have a service learning project! Our contract is signed and we're ready to start! We're going to be teaching a couple of high school health classes about eating disorders. The teacher will approve the material we prepare and then we just go teach. I think it will be several 80 minute class periods. I'm pretty stoked because I am so stressed out from looking for projects that I would have taken any that come my way.

We didn't have class this week so there's nothing to talk about there. I wasn't too happy with my test score. I will just have to study harder for the next one.

So what?

Now that we have a project to do we can get our experience in service learning. I always thought about what it would be like to be a teacher. I never really considered it because I really did not like k-12 school. I don't know if I just went to bad schools or what. I also really don't like public speaking. I know that it's a little bit different when you're the teacher and you're in charge of the class but then you get everyone complaining at you when they don't like your style of teaching or they don't like the grade they get. I just don't want to deal with it. At least with this project I won't technically be in charge of the class so I'll only have to deal with the public speaking bit.

I was kind of hoping that our service learning project would be in a field that I enjoy or am interested in but since that is not an option this far into the semester I will test out my skills as a teacher. I hope that there will be more opportunities to explore my interests/passions in the future.

Now what?

We're going to have to start gathering our information for the powerpoint and activities we'll be doing in the classes. It seems like it will take a lot of work but we do have 10 hours worth of prep time that we need to fill anyway. Hopefully it doesn't take too much longer than 10 hours because that is already a lot between all of the other coursework we have to do this semester.

We're also going to have to get started on that 10 page paper we have to do along with the service learning. I am not really sure that we'll have enough information to fill up 10 pages worth of writing but it will all work out in the end, I am sure of it.

I always have to remind myself that when all of this hard work is over, I'll be a nurse. That is the most exciting thing of all.

Week 5- Starting From Scratch

What?

Service learning is not turning out like I had hoped. The lady we were coordinating with has stopped emailing me and will not answer when I call her. She won't even let me leave a voicemail, she simply hangs up. I am feeling very frustrated right now. We have to get this project done but it is very hard with everything going on in other classes and when people won't answer their cell phones.

In class we talked about nutrition and obesity. I really enjoyed watching the documentary Fat. I really liked the way it talked about obesity in several different ways. It included the standard "obesity will kill you" and the sad stories about people who are made fun of for the way they look. But it also disspelled some myths about obesity such as "obese people are lazy." The overweight ladies in the dance troupe spent several hours a week engaging in physical activity and the comedian had to work out 3 hours (!) every day just to keep the weight off.

So what?

So now that we feel out of luck on our previous service learning project we must look forward to trying some new project. I tried to contact Volunteer Services at Intermountain Medical Center where I work to see if they have any projects we could work on and add to. But they were closed for today, One of my group members said that she will try to contact her church's youth groups to see if there is anyway we could do some sort of service with them . I hope we can go help them out and teach them something about their health.

I think that in regards to obesity people need to be more open minded. I think that a lot of people believe exercise and eating right will cause everyone to be extremely thin but that is not true at all. Especially as seen by the people in the documentary we watched. Yes, it will help you to lose weight but some people set unrealistic expectations on what they should look like. One of the ladies in the video, I think she was a doctor, said that people come to her and say that they were exercising but they didn't lose any weight so they stopped. The doctor was appalled because losing weight wasn't the goal she had in mind for these patients. The goal was to be healthier.

I had a patient at work the other day who was moderately overweight. In talking to her I found out that she once weighed over 300 lbs and had gastric bypass surgery a few years ago. She said it was the dumbest thing she had ever done. She ended up having major complications and losing her stomach completely. Now she says she eats a healthy diet and she rides 100 mile bike marathons. Her health was evident when I did her vital signs. She was on no medications other than ibuprofen and her blood pressure was in the 100's over 60's and her resting heart rate was in the low 40's. She did not look healthy but apparently she was very healthy.

Now what?

Our service learning project will come somehow, someway. We will have to wait until the weekend is over to really get any sort of headway on that front. I hope for the best. I'm actually kind of glad the hunger banquet thing didn't work out because I don't think we could have turned out a quality project from that.

When it comes to people being overweight I believe that we need to look past appearances and into the actual health of the person. I am not obese but I am a little overweight and I know that when I go to the doctor he will make some comments that will make me feel very uncomfortable. I wonder how he makes people who are obese feel. I have learned that many overweight people put off going to the doctor because of the way they make them feel so the patients are not getting the proper health screenings they need. I hope that as a nurse I can be less judgmental of my patients and actually help them to be healthy instead of pushing them to lose weight.

Week 4 - Possible Project?

This week we made some major headway with our service learning project! I was able to contact someone about working with the Hunger Banquet. It looks like this might be our saving grace. I really hope this one doesn't fall through too. Enough about that, though, I don't want to jinx it. In class today we discussed different age groups (including 'Mother') and how they all have different needs when it comes to healthcare and life in general. At first I thought this lesson was kind of pointless. "Of course we're all different! We talk to people of different age groups everyday!" But then when we got into the lesson I was surprised by how much I didn't know.

So now I guess my job is to take everything that I learned from this lesson, such as adjusting my care to the age and specific needs of my patient, and begin applying it in clinical. I think that providing specific care to each patient's needs won't come over night. It will be something that I have to practice everytime I step into the hospital. This service project is also teaching me a lot about working collaboratively with peers. I think that all of the members of my group were kind of wary to take this project on and I am pretty sure that none of us wanted to be the head of making sure things got done. One of my classmates actually found and suggested the service learning project and she was going to be the one to contact them but that didn't work out so it kind of fell into my lap. So for now it is up to me to get this project organized. I think that this is good because it is helping me to learn how to be responsible for a group.

Learning how to communicate with different demographics will help me in my nursing career because even if I specialize and work with one group of people I will always have to deal with my patient's family and I am sure that knowing how to communicate with them and fulfilling their needs will make me a better nurse. Every day I am scared yet excited to be a nurse. Working with my group to get this project done will help me with my leadership and my following skills when I become a nurse. I know that right now the organizing of the project is on my shoulders but I am pretty sure that one of my group members will step up and take charge of thr information we are going to distribute. From what I have seen as a CNA in the hospital nurses are constantly transitioning from positions of leadership to positions of following. One day a nurse will be the charge nurse and the next day she will just be on the working the floor under a different charge. It is interesting to see the change in the nurse's behavior from one role to the next. I hope that this project can help me as I become a nurse and take on these roles.

Sometimes I find myself freaking out because I don't know what a med does or because I can't remember the treatment for an illness. But I have to keep reminding myself that I am only in my second semester of nursing school. If I knew all of the things that I am freaking out about then I would already be a nurse. Then I get excited about nursing again.

I am still not sure why we watched Hoarders.

I Forgot Week Three!

I have been worrying about the Common Disorders test so much that I totally forgot to post for week 3! It's alright though, I'm doing it now. I am still in limbo about our group project. We got rejected at one place and have been unable to find another project so far. We may need to ask for an extension. I think one of my partners has found one that we may be able to do. It sounds fun too! This is definitely teaching me patience and persistence. This semester is by far harder than last semester! I always get really stressed about deadlines and projects and other fun school things. I am looking forward to doing this project I just hope that we can figure it all out before the deadline.

So I don't really have a lot to say about the service learning project other than I hope we can figure one out really soon. I suppose because we are having trouble finding a project then my topic of the day will be stress. Stress has always been a big issue for me. It helps me to get stuff done but it also has cause a few negative effects on my body. I used to suffer from TMJ and recurrent tension headaches related to stress. But by putting myself into stressful situations and by learning good coping skills I have completely gotten rid of my TMJ and headaches are only happening a couple times a month. Those I can definitely deal with . I also think that because stress of the unknown is a problem for me that it would be useful to find a way to specialize in my nursing career. I know that when I am really familiar with something then I have way less stress about it. So hopefully I can learn all I can about one subject and use it to the benefit of my patients.

I am learning how to better deal with my stress. I owe a big chunk of reduced stress to family and friends but also to experience. That is something I hope that (experience) nursing school can give me so that when I am feeling stressed out in my career I can easily cope with it. Also I think that specializing like I mentioned before will be a big help to me. This week my goal for reducing stress is to find a good service learning project and to remember to post for my health promotions class by the deadline!

Rough Start to the Second Week

We did not get the volunteer spot we wanted. Well what doesn't hurt you only makes you stronger, right? We're working on figuring something else out. I'm still unclear on what the 20 hours entails. Is that 20 hours of just teaching or is it 20 hours of volunteer work with a teaching project included somewhere in there? I'll have to do a little bit of clarifying to figure it out. This week in class we learned about culture. I feel that it is very good for us to learn about how to handle a situation involving multiple cultures. I'm sure it is important in other fields of work but because nursing is so (uhhhh what's the word...) intimate (I guess?) then culture affects it so much more.

I don't really have much to say about our service learning project. I guess it is still out for discussion. We are running out time to figure it out. I am actually get nervous as I write this. I hope that I can find something to do that is fun and that I can be passionate about. What good is doing something you hate? I don't think I will learn much from it if I hate it.

As a student nurse it means that I should begin learning about other cultures and what to do in situations that involve different cultures while I am in class and clinicals. I have noticed that it is very easy for nurses and nursing students to get so carried away with the textbook side of health care that they forget about the human side. Some nurses are so involved in the person's physical health they may forget to take into account what the person's culture dictates

While learning about culture may seem tedious I think that it will help all of us in the long run. By learning skills to deal with cultural differences it will help us when difficult situations arise not only in nursing but also in our lives in general. I'm hoping that it will be like CPR, when the situation comes up the training will just kick in and you will automatically know what to do.

I hope that this education will help me to become a better student, educator, family member, and friend as well as a better nurse. I believe that a lot of our education can be used in everyday life and that it will make us better people in the long run. I understand that there is a lot of culture and diversity in Utah County but I hope that I can someday live in a place more outside my own comfort zone and take care of a bigger pool of diversity. Maybe I can accomplish this through travel nursing. Although I hear that the opportunities have decreased since the economy went down I hope that I will still be able to benefit from the experience. I think that learning about culture will be an integral part of me being a nurse, traveler or not.

Service Learning: It Has Begun!

We have begun the preliminary stages of our service learning project. This week we have contacted Planned Parenthood to get the "Okay" to do our service learning project with them. I was not the one in the group who contacted them and I have yet to hear how that went. It makes me a little nervous but I am also very excited to get out into the community to teach awareness about...something. We still haven't decided what we're going to do our teaching project on either. I think that will come after we have had a discussion with the people at Planned Parenthood. I think that our lecture on adult learning gave us some tips for our learning projects. The most poignant slide, I found, was the one titled "Teaching/Learning Factors." Our group was thinking of using pamphlets to teach our information along with conversation with people who come to our kiosk of information. So the retention rate of our learners will be better than that of just those with whom we would lecture. I hope that they will put their learning to immediate use (be it by practicing safe sex or washing their hands) so they will retain the information the best.

I believe that being an adult learner and learning about adult learnig can help me greatly in my own life and in the lives of those that I educate. I believe that understanding why we're doing something (such as learning) can help us in succeeding in the activity (learning!). By understanding how important learning is to my career and to my life in general I think that it will help me to grow as a person. Also, knowing how other adults like to learn and how they learn the best can help me when I educate someone about their health or health in general.

I really hope that my group gets the service learning project that we are trrying to get. It will give me the opportunity to educate women (mostly women, I assume) about keeping their bodies safe and healthy. I have had a soft spot for the subject ever since I had to have one of my ovaries removed when I was 19. The removal was not caused by anything that I did but it made me more aware of my body and the need to be vigilant in it's care. I was afraid that I would not be able to have children if something else bad happened so I went to the doctor and was given information on how to save my eggs through birth control. This was a huge relief to me. I think that it will be satisfying to be able to give other women the same kind of relief through my teaching.

I believe that teaching this sensitive subject can help me learn how to teach while being non-judgemental of others choices. I am sure it is a hard thing for some people to do but I am also sure that I can do it and learn a lot from the experience. I also believe that completing this project with two other people from class can help me to learn collaborative work in relation to nursing. We all have to do our part and we all have to help each other when we go to actually teach. It will be interesting to see how it all works out.

I feel like women's health nursing is something that I can truly be passionate about and what a great place to start! I believe that beginning to learn this information now and starting contact with the community I would be working with in the future would greatly benefit me if I were to become a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner or hold a job similar in function. . I believe that my colleagues (classmates) could benefit by seeing this side of healthcare because they may choose to make this their career as well. I am very grateful that I may have the opportunity to work with this community so early in my nursing career.