Cardiovascular and Lung Assessment

I'm not going to say much about this. I did well for the most part, but I didn't cover the top edges of the lungs during auscultation, I was 2 inches from the mitral valve (though I did hear a pulse) and because I'm not a liar and wanted to actually find the pulses in my partner's feet, I have to redo pedal pulses. Everything else I did correctly including:

Overriders
Check wall symmetry
Checking for carotid bruits
Edema
Capillary refill
The Sounds Tutor (I had wheezes)
Exiting Overriders

I heard the aortic, pulmonic, Erbs Point, and Tricuspid valves of the heart, I listened to all areas of the lungs except the top portion along the shoulders. And I correctly located carotid, brachial, radial, and popliteal pulses. I did everything right, except that I didn't include an inch of lung:


The circled part O_O

I was less than 2 inches from the mitral valve and I was honest about not being able to feel a pulse on my partners swollen feet... FROM NOW ON I'M GOING TO LIE. >_> That's what everyone else was doing. I guess I have to suffer for being honest. :(

Oh well. Back to the skills lab to redo what I already know.

Blood Pressure Follow up and Issues

So after failing the BP portion of my vital signs check off I went back at 4 and practiced with three people, got helped by the professors two more times and then retook the test and passed. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing, but that I was nervous as hell when I first got in there. So yeah, that's over and done with and I can breathe.

Now I have to focus on the Thorax and Lung Assessment as well as the heart and vascular assessment which shouldn't be that difficult either, but the partner that I have is a pain in the ass and I feel like she's making fun of me more than helping me pass this fucking skills check off. And the thing is that she doesn't know what she's doing either so when I try to help her she says "no, don't tell me how to do it," and I'm sitting there like "but you've fucked this practice lab up five fucking times already. Obviously you don't know what in the hell you're doing or you would have fixed the problem by now!" Urghh, I need to find someone else to work with. There are so many people that I can choose from, but I believe that they all have partners already and I'm stuck with this bimbo who'd rather laugh and joke and kid her way through these assessments than actually practice. Gawd. I'm just tired of these people. I'm so freaking quiet because I don't like the people that I have to work with and the people I would REALLY like to work with are in another lab hour altogether and I can't partner them I don't believe. If I can than I will, but we'll see. I may just have to touch this hairy girl, pass this lab and let her ass fail when she tries to check off.

I'm done trying to help people. When I have questions they laugh like I'm the dumb one here. I understand the material, but I need to find someone to work with that is just as dedicated to passing this class as I am. :( I'm tired. I'm exhausted and I just want these practice labs to be over. I know this isn't the end. I'm only a junior, but lord I can NOT WAIT until senior year. Three more semesters to go!! Please let them pass quickly!!!!!!!!!!!

Me

Blood pressure, blood pressure. Why art thou so hard?

So yeah, I didn't do so hot on the blood pressure portion of my skills test. I thought I was because up until this point I got very close to the correct number for the systolic pressure, but this time I was wayyy off. I was nervous. My pulse was 120 beats per minute and that was lying down ya'll. I felt like I was about to have a heart ache. It was horrible.

I did however get the rest of the skills test right: the overriders, the apical and radial pulses as well as the respiration rate. Because I did so well I don't have to come back up there and test on those as well. ^_^ So at 4 or 5 I'll be off to the labs to study my ass LMAO I can't fail this thing again. I refuse. XD

Later!

First Exam, 22 more to go!

That's what the boards said when I entered lecture hall after our first Professional Clinical Nursing exam. :) The test was pretty difficult. I've never taken a test like that where you can't really rely on what you know, but what you think. It was all pretty much guess work. I went in knowing small facts about how to take care of a patient, but then again I went in knowing nothing...If that makes any sense at all. I didn't know what to expect.

In Human A&P you are given terms, bones, muscles, tissues to remember and you simply regurgitate them onto the test and you're done. On this test you can know values for homeostatis such 60-100 pulse rates is normal, 95% to 100% O2 Saturation is normal, but then you have to apply that to scenario type questions where they don't tell you that the clients O2 stats are low, but that they have labored breathing. You have to put two and two together and figure out what to do for that client. In short, these questions make you think like a nurse which is really scary and exciting at the same time.

The exam is taken on the computer and it's timed. We were given 48 minutes to complete a 40 questions test. Time wasn't an issue, though I did occasionally look at the little ticking bastard every few minutes to see if I had time to linger on a hard question or if I should speed up. The horrible thing about these tests is that you can't go back to a previous question once you've answered it. Once you hit submit that question is in the past, gone, no longer worth second guessing about. That alone was horrifying because you know on those hard questions that once you 'pick' an answer you can't suddenly have a light bub go off in your head and go back to it. They say they are preparing us for NCLEX because that exam is timed as well, but good lord. If you though taken a written exam was hard, they have nothing on this. XD

In the end however I did very well on the exam. I made a 90, only missing 4/40 questions which I was really happy about. You should have seen my face when the score came up. My face looked like --> O_O. I couldn't believe it. Before I left home and while I was in the shower I sang a little song to myself called C's are for losers and A's are for winners. It was really cheesey, but I was dead set on not making a C on this test (which I did on the pre-test :[. I was like, I can do this. It's NOT that freaking difficult. You just have to think like a nurse and you'll do fine. I choose this career because I knew I could do it. People become nurses everyday. Seriously, it's not that hard. >_< Now I'm off to study, study, study! Wish me luck for my PCN skills test!

Me