Bits and Pieces on my mind

I haven’t said much about community health nursing and that’s probably because it bores me. I think the only thing I have learned so far is that there are three levels of prevention and intervention: primary, secondary, and tertiary. I’m sure that tidbit of information will serve me well. Pretty much everything else I either already know or guessed using intuition to get good grades on our tests so far. Lots of group projects. You all know how I feel about those.

Clinical for this rotation is silly. From what I can tell it’s a total crap shoot whether you get a good experience based on the nurse preceptor they pair you with. Some people sit around for an hour in the morning waiting for the nurse, then watch them type on the computer for a few hours, then get told they’re done for the day. Some do busy work that the nurse does over again. Some were assigned to clinics where they were told to have a little spanish knowledge, but then find out that that’s ALL they speak there and they’re not prepared for it. Others are having an okay time with pretty good nurses. This includes me, working with school nurses. But we’re not getting enough hours. All the nurses at my location (I’ve worked with a few different ones) are great teachers and pleasant to work with, but they’re only there part time. However we’re responsible for getting 8 hours W/Th/F. It irks me that they hold us responsible for hours that they can’t assign to us. Also, even those of us with good placements feel like we’ve stagnated. Just halfway through and we’re bored, ready to move onto the next place. I think that’s because this placement is mostly about management. There’s little patient contact, mostly education (which the nurses prefer to do themselves), and a LOT of paperwork.

I figured out what I’m going to be for Halloween. It’s not that hip or specific, but I already have the parts for the costume. You’ll have to wait and see. Tonight I helped Miranda make the tutu for Azalea’s bumblebee costume. Who would have thought that my tutu-steaming skills would be needed again? We enjoyed my coconut-cardamom rice pudding and watched America’s Test Kitchen while we worked.

Tomorrow night I’m babysitting while the rest go to a haunted house. Wednesday is Movie Club, Thursday is the ward Halloween party and our mini 30 Rock party, and Friday is a big party at Brian’s (of course). I’m baking treats for movie club and Halloween too. It will be a busy week! To top it all off, I signed up to work a (literal) drive-thru flu shot clinic at Kaiser on Saturday. In Northglenn. Be there at 6:30 AM. The day after Halloween. It’s a crazy idea but I really need the hours (we get 8 hours for working 6!). Who knows? I may be so deliriously tired I’ll enjoy standing in the freezing cold car fumes, leaning over windows and stabbing people in the arm.

Last weekend I drove home to GJ for an impromptu trip home. Andy and his girlfriend were going to visit as Amanda drove back to Denver, and they wanted our dogs to play together. I couldn’t resist! It was a fun reunion not doing anything in particular but watch the dogs wrestle. Jem went ballistic with joy. I have lots of photos I’ll post later. I need to edit them down a bit and upload them, and it’s 10:30 so I’m calling it a night now. Sorry no fun photos this time, but I felt guilty about not writing for so long I needed to just write. (Usually I read it over and fix typos, but I’m even going to skip that this time.) Ok, one lolcat to say goodnight.