Patient #1

Today was my first day on the unit at the hospital. I took care of my first patient, and she lived to tell!

This semester, I will be spending every Wednesday morning from 7:45am - 12:15pm working as a student nurse on the post-operative med-surg unit at Beth Israel Medical Center. I will be exposed to all kinds of patients, so this is a really good introduction to the clinicial environment.

My first patient was a 55 year old female that had an unsuccessful angioplasty, followed by an aortic bypass, and now has pnuemonia while recovering from all of that. When I get the assignment in my group's pre-conference, I was a bit stunned. I was really hoping for, I don't know...skinned knee, bad headache, something like that. No, instead I got a woman who is literally stitched together.

Well, after nearly throwing up, I walked into her room and introduced myself. I explained that I am a student nurse, and that I was going to be available for her to try to help her in whatever ways I could for the morning. I then told her that I don't know enough to hurt her, so she shouldn't worry. That got a good laugh out of her, and it broke the ice.

She was terrific. I did temperature, pulse, respirations, and blood pressure on her. I helped her out of bed and into a chair, cleaned her room, etc. She talked to me about her medical situation, how she misses her job, and how she really hopes to get back to work eventually.

When I left for the day at around noon, I returned to the room to thank her for being my first patient. I told her that I will never forget her, as she was very kind and accommodating to being poked and prodded by a student with only 4 weeks of nursing school under his belt. She told me that it was her pleasure, and that she enjoyed having a private nurse for the morning. She then wished me the very best of luck and shook my hand.

I don't think it could have gone any smoother than that. What a great day.