The 12 Hour Shift

     So I did two 12 hr shifts back to back this week and it really opened my eyes. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be which is good. The day starts off in the morning with introducing yourself to the patients who are awake and then followed by morning report. After report we do accuchecks on patients who need them before breakfast trays come up. Then its morning meds. We had a very talkative patient so we usually did him last just because it was always hard to get away haha. Then there were the morning rounds. The rest of the day is filled with discharges/admissions, 12 oclock meds, accuchecks before lunch, and dealing with annything and everything else that came up. Moral of the story is you pretty much are not sitting down for more then 5 minutes at a time, and even then you are constantly being interrupted. I got to see alot of admissions and discharges and helped out with a lot of things that normally we don't get to do during clinicals. One of the hardest parts is having a dying patient. We had a patient who was dying and was recently put on hospice care. It's sad because he is a really nice man and his family was really nice too. My nurse actually got really emotinal about it at one point because she got attached to him. She complained that she was being unprofessional but it was really heartwarming to see. the patient's mother was very upset and looking at her, his 2 sons, wife, and everyone in his family go through something like this was really just heartbreaking. Moments like that will probably be the hardest part of this job. With all that you can imagine how hard it was to get things done in 12 hours. One nurse was saying nurses need 24 hours to do everything they need to do in a 12 hour shift. Nursing is really all about prioritization. After days like that, once I got home I lliterally came home ate, showered, and went straight to bed lol. I am scheduled to go back in on Sunday. My nurse said that weekends are better days to learn because it's a little slower. She just doesn't realize how much she has taught me in such a short amount of time already.I really am enjoying my time here so far and everyone is sooo nice and inviting. I hope the rest of the summer is just as good! I'm just really glad I got the opportunity to do this externship because I am able to do and see a lot of things that I hadn't done or seen before. I encourage everyone and anyone to try and get an opportunity like this because it truly is a valuable experience to have.