TurboNurse

I can't believe I survived my first day as a nurse!  It's crazy!  I was really nervous when I came in today because I had no clue what to expect but everything went better than I could have imagined!

My original preceptor got floated over to NBICU so I got a different person today and she was WONDERFUL!!!  I couldn't have asked for a better person to work with!  She made me feel instantly comfortable and welcome.  She was so open and willing to answer my questions.  I wish she would precept me for the rest of my time.

I started off just observing today to try to get a feel for how things go.  We had 3 babies in the ICN (intermediate care nursery) which didn't sound too bad and it really wasn't.  One went home so we were left with two and ended up splitting the assignment so I actually took care of one baby by myself on my first day!  I can't believe it!  I guess I really am the nurse now!

The baby I took care of was having some temperature regulation problems.  It is only 31 weeks old and had just come out of an incubator the day before.  We came in and did our morning assessment and got the baby's temp and it was pretty low.  We watched the baby for a few hours, until the next feed when vitals were due (we did vitals on this baby q3h with the bolus feeds).  When the temp dropped a further at the second assessment, we transfered him from an open crib to an incubator.  I have never delt with an incubator before but really, it was quite easy.  A lot less scary than I thought it would be.

So I watched the baby's temp closely for the next few hours, adjusting the temp of the incubator as needed (I'm so proud that I did this on my own and used my own judgement!) and finally, after about 4 hours of being in the incubator, the little kiddo warmed up and I could turn the temp down a little.  Yay!

The only med that the baby had wasn't due until 9 tonight so I didn't have to worry about that so much.  I just fed, did vitals, and assessed every 3 hours.  It was a great kiddo to start out with and I really learned a lot.

I also helped out with the other babies in my pod when I could (there are 4 pods, with four babies to each pod).

I'm amazed at how much of my preceptor experience in the MICU (adults) carried over to where I was.  I was much more comfortable with charting and the little things like filling out the MPOC (its basically a nursing diagnosis type deal, hard to explain without seeing it).  I felt like I was able to get right on in and just do it.

Tomorrow, depending on our assignment, I may take two babies and do all care on them!  I feel that I can do that and am ready.  These kiddo's are really pretty stable and are in the ICN to feed and grow and be monitored for things like apnea and bradycardia.

I still can't fully believe that I am the nurse but I'm getting there.  I'd say I'm at about 50% right now which is better than where I started out this morning.

Time to go eat some dinner and gear up for day 2.  They have me working 3 in a row.  I have a feeling I am going to be exhausted on Saturday but it's all good since I have 4 days in a row off to recover.