Here I am, excited and stressful again to be back to school and have the 1st clinical for the semester. I think keeping my journal and sharing it with everyone is a good thing:

We all get the orientation, get to know our instructor and the facility. I have the impression that she is a good instructor that will be calm and supportive to me ^^.

While others choose to go to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Labor & Delivery unit, I feel it’s safer for the 1st day to go to the floor.

I followed R. She was busy with charting for about an hour or so. While she did her job, I was imagined how I would feel if I were her. As I guessed, she checked on how I felt every several minutes, afraided I was getting bored. She gave me support and encouragement. She showed that she cared, so I did not feel left out.

Then I ran around with her, helped her change the beds (the bed sheets for every hospital look a little different) and get some stuff such as wash cloths, bottles and ice water for the patients. She let me touch the baby’s anterior fontanel, and feel the mom’s uterus. She did physical assessment on the mothers and babies. I observed her carefully. We were on our feet for the whole time without eating lunch. I did not want to get a break as I wanted to observe everything she did. I wondered how she could stand that long, while my legs were very sored. I wonder if I will get used to prolong-standing, but for now, it is uncomfortable.

I also learned how to wrap a baby. I didn’t think we wrap the babies that tight. I read the medical notes, and I am so happy that hospitals have computerized system now. I do not have the skills or enough vocabulary to figure out hand-written notes. They are hard to read.

I followed the nurse while she set up a room for a new patient. She had the list of what should be in the room on a small card which can be carried along with her ID, how she welcomed the new patient. I felt the nurse’s expression was a little flat when she said “Congratulations” to the mom. Anyway, this was not the patient’s 1st baby. I wonder how the mom’s emotion changes as she got the second, third…baby.

She printed out the information about breastfeeding for a mom who was taking medication. She might not be able to breast-feed her baby because of the drugs she’s taking would be harmful to the new born.

Thanks to my instructor, I got the chance to see circumcision procedure. It seemed to be painful. I felt sorry for the baby boy. Fortunately, he received local anesthesia. Although he cried a lot during the procedure, the physician said it might be because he just did not want to be bothered, as his skin was pulled, kept in place with the scissors, & so on. It was excited for me to watch the whole process. If the baby did not cry, then it was totally something interesting to see. Anyway, the doctor did it nicely and neatly. The nurse told me that this procedure was done as part of religious or cultural beliefs. I found this online article that answered all my questions about circumcision: http://kidshealth.org/parent/system/surgical/circumcision.html 

I also observed the tech withdrawing the baby’s blood to do the standard test. That baby had different blood type from her mom. The tech told me she needed to get enough blood quickly, otherwise the blood would clot and they could no longer use it. She would have to do the same process again.

I felt very happy to see and touch the new born for the first time. The babies got big faster than in my imagination. I only saw the new born babies on the media before, so today was a great day for me.

PS: I wrote this a few days ago in the little notebook I carried around with me during clinical. I edited my thoughts before putting it up here ^^.