Game plan.

Upon meeting the acute CI last week, my group and I thought "Holy intense Batman!" So I prepared the best I could last night for clinical this morning, but I've got news for ya. No matter how much you think you're prepared, first day is still first day, meaning you don't know what to expect and you're clueless. You know zip! Ok, I lied, I knew one thing: we were going to get grilled, I just didn't know to what extend. Well, let it be known that we got grilled very very well done today, some of us were even burnt. I was the first one to be put through the ringer. My God, I've never felt that stupid before.

I've never had someone pushed me to my limits like this before, I've never had someone made me think constantly about how my patient's doing and what I'm doing to them and why I'm doing it to them like this before, I never had to prove myself until this. Goodness gracious, this is something else. Now I know we need to be of top of our game at all time. Cover your ass is fast becoming my group motto.

There is a reason why some hospitals are magnet and some aren't. The hospital we're at is none of the county general hospital. It's huge, it's a magnet hospital, and it's got reputation to live up to. The difference between this and the hospital for my OB clinical, which is not of this caliber, is mindbogglingly obvious. So I get it. I get why my CI is very strict about us truly knowing whatever it is that we're doing--or lack of doing of things we're supposed to, to protect us and to protect the patients. Heck, if CI feels we need to know what patient's BM smells like, you better bet our noses would be near that toilet. (This, of course, is an exaggeration, I really really hope no good smelling sense will be assaulted this semester).

Said CI works us to our worth, it is exhausting and involving all feelings reminiscent of the Spanish inquisition. It's going to be one hell of a clinical, one where we're whipped to greatness. It's a lot of work, it's nervewracking, and dammit I sure am going to bitch my way through this, because it's uncomfortable and unpleasant to be under this kind of supervision. But I'll deal. I'll survive. I'm liking the challenge. I want to learn to be a great nurse. I'd like to see how far I can be pushed and how far I can grow.

And how long it's going to take me to do care plans for this. They are as hellish as the clinical itself.

Damn. There goes my life....