3 Weeks Already

Wow, it’s already been 3 weeks since I was last in the United States. How time flies. The first two weeks seemed to be a lot longer, but once we got into our regular work week, the time just flew by.

We started our work at the hospital and many of us are feeling incompetent for where we are working. All the nurses and doctors speak Spanish and being there for 8 hours of speaking Spanish is exhausting. We do get an hour long lunch break where we meet up with each other and are able to speak English and get a break as well as compare stories. There are five girls in our group working at the hospital. I’m on the third floor where the patients are recovering or being taken care of. Two girls are in the Emergency Department, one in the ICU, and one in outpatient surgery.

I have really enjoyed working in the hospital. Even after only being there for three days, I know that I could see myself working in a hospital as a career. It was difficult for me on the first day because I’m not used to seeing people suffer. A lot of what reminded me of the last time that I saw my grandpa Anderson in the hospital in January. In the morning I got an orientation to the third floor where I will be working (all in Spanish) and then in the afternoon followed a nurse around as she went about her duties. On Wednesday and Thursday I followed other nurses around as well.

The nurses I’ve been following around are the “Auxiliary” nurses and are more like CNAs (Certified Nurses Assistants). It’s really helped to get to know my way around the floor and I even tried taking vitals on Thursday. It went well for the first one, but then for the second one, Maria Elena controlled how fast the pressure in the cuff was released and I’m not sure how accurate that person’s vitals were that day. Oops. After that, I let Maria Elena finish up taking all the blood pressures. In the mornings, all the patients get to take showers. Being a part of helping with this has really made me appreciate the simple things in life, like being able to take a shower on my own.

One of the highlights of my few days in the hospital was being able to help take care of newborn babies. In four days, we had 3 babies born and I got to see all of them. On my first afternoon, the nurse I was working with told me that we were getting a room ready for a baby that was going to be born. I was waiting the whole afternoon to see it and I got to help take the mother and baby to their room. On my second day, I got to help give a baby a bath while the mother talked to me a little bit in English. On my third day, I once again had the opportunity to give another newborn a bath and then afterwards Maria Elena let me hold the baby. On Monday I’m going to ask my boss if it would be possible for me to take a break from being on third floor to go down and see a birth. I would like to see if Maternity/Ob/Gyn would be where I may be interested in working as a nurse.