Peds Clinical Days Are Over

My Peds clinical days ended abruptly on Wednesday during post-conference when my instructor advised us that it would be our last day in the hospital. You see, next Wednesday was supposed to be our last day in the hospital, but apparently JCAHO, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, will be in the hospital checking things out. And apparently, the hospitals don't want students around (for good reasons, and its not just this hospital.....some of the other Peds clinical groups at another hospital had the same issue). So instead I have to meet at school and watch a few videos. While I am happy to be out next Wednesday by 1pm instead of 6pm, I feel a bit jipped that that could have been my very last pediatric experience ever, and I didn't even know it until it was over. I was actually looking forward to another hospital day, and while watching movies is great and all, you just don't get the same learning experience as you would in real life. Everything is always different in real life.

And so there it is. My Peds clinical days are over. I'm still not sure of the role Peds may have in my future, but it still is a contender. I still have a year of rotations to figure it out. But for now, my Peds final is in 9 days, in 16 days Psych begins, and in just over 8 weeks I will begin my long awaited and definitely needed 2 month summer vacation. I'm almost half-way there!

Failing

It's not something I like to include as part of my vocabulary. It's something I had hoped to completely elude during my nursing school journey. I had seen so many people fail exams, and subsequently fail the classes and I did not ever want to be a part of that group. Unfortunately, I am a part of the group.

I have officially failed my first nursing exam. 11 exams down, 16 more to go. 10 passed, 1 failed. Sigh.

Passing is 73 or higher and I scored a measly 70. Wow. I'm not sure I even have words.

Now, the upside to all of this is that I am still passing my class. In fact, I only need a 65 on the final to pass and apparently, according to the teacher, the next test is supposed to be easier. She has said that the first and last exams people tend to do well on while the second test is supposed to be the zinger. A zinger it was.

Just about everyone had a drop in their grades; some more than others. I can count on two hands the number of people I talk to regularly that failed. I haven't even talked to everyone yet, either. Its going to be an interesting Monday.

I will admit that I am being hard on myself. I know that it's not the end of the world and that best of all, I am still passing. It could be worse. It could be a lot worse. But I know that I can do better and that is why I am so upset. I should have done better. I can think of 6 or 7 or 8 mistakes at least, that should have been correct answers. I don't like to make excuses, but I can't help but think that maybe this had something to do with not getting much sleep the night before. I had went to bed at almost 2am, then woke up at 5am because my poor Nate had a bad dream and then after getting back to sleep at 5:20am, I got out of bed at around 6:15am after hitting the snooze every 5 minutes since 5:45am. So essentially, I had about 3 hours of sleep. Not a good night's sleep the night before an exam. Heck, not a good night's sleep for anything. But like I said, I don't want to to try to make excuses. I made some stupid mistakes and I hope that I have learned enough from them to not repeat them again.

So here I am, dusting myself off and moving forward. I'm admittedly not the best student in the world, but it's gotten me this far. I am going to try my hardest to study as much as I can over the next 2 weeks. I am studying for a 95 on my final. That would earn me a B for the class. Is it possible to get a 95? Yes. Is it probable? No. But if I don't try for a 95, then I certainly won't get a 95. And at the very least, I will pass Peds.

Peds Clinical Yesterday

My clinical yesterday was pretty uneventful. I had 2 patients: a 2 year old boy with asthma and pneumonia (in both lungs) and an 11 year old girl with stomach issues. (sadly, the 11 year old is probably 4 inches taller than me) While I was at lunch, my 11 year old got discharged and was on her way home. Ironically, it seemed that I had more down time with 2 patients then the previous week with 1. at any rate, I find it funny that right before clinicals, I find myself dreading going. I'm not sure why, but I do. I don't know if its the fact that I can't just stay home and hang out, or if its a fear of what the day may bring. But I find once I walk through the hospital doors, I am fine. There really wasn't much going on with my patients except that my 2 year old had to be on constant oxygen via a mask otherwise his oxygen saturation levels would drop below normal levels. They were watching him and repeating tests to decide whether or not to move him into PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). As of when I left the floor last night, he was not going to be moved to PICU.

In other news, I found out from some friends who have my lecture teacher as their clinical instructor that the highest grade in the class was a 90, which is also a B. And after talking to others, it seems that mostly people scored in the high 70's, low 80's. I know someone who got an 89, 2 people that got an 86, one person who got an 85 and then two other people who got an 84 like me. We have about 55 people in our class, so I suppose this means the test was hard if the scores are as they were??? Not sure. But I am still proud, and relieved, that I got a B. Now I am just working on trying (since I haven't started yet) to study ahead of time for my next test. I really slacked off with the first one and I didn't really look over any of my notes until the last few days. I heard the second test is more difficult than the first, and I certainly don't want to lose my B.