After a week of sleeping until 10 AM, watching The View, baking cookies, and generally refusing to do anything that reminded me of nursing, I am back in classes. All of my classes stay the same except one. My new class is Nursing 313: Chronic Illness. The professor who teaches it is not only a nurse, but also a naturopathic doctor. It's interesting so far, but it involves a lot more lecture hours. I have 10 hours of class and 16 hours of clinical per week...plus my other classes. I had my first clinical day today at the Multnomah County HIV Clinic. I am assigned to a particular nurse, Kim, and I shadowed him today to get a feel for the clinic and my role there. I also did my first blood draw! Kim let me practice on him, which wasn't scary, but then he told me to draw blood from the next patient, which was definitely intimidating. A lot of the patients are IV drug users, so their veins are pretty screwed up. I got it first try, though. I gave so many shots today that I feel like I've been doing it forever. Next week I will start taking a few of Kim's patients, and my instructor would like to have me take on a full patient load by the end of the term. Again, very intimidating, but I'm sure I will be ready by the time that comes.
The clinic itself is really amazing. I didn't realize HIV could be controlled so well, but the advent of new drug therapies is helping positive patients live longer than ever before. In 1994, over 100 (of 700) of the clinic's patients died, but only 3 have died so for this year. HIV patients are actually dying of old age, which was nearly unheard of even 8 or 9 years ago. I feel very fortunate to have such an amazing experience to learn. The doctors, nurse practictioners, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists have a wealth of knowledge they are eager to share with me. I think I will learn a lot from the patients, too. They all have very unique stories. In fact, one of my clinical assignments is to interview a patient and write their story.
Any word from Google, Andy? I haven't seen a post from Molly or Greg in a while...
1 comment:
That is weird. In 1994 HIV was so much of a bigger deal. You don't hear as much about it anymore. I didn't know HIV was controlled that easy either. I guess it is possible. Magic Johnson is still around eh?
No word from Google. I am not counting on it.
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