So Much More Than You May Think

It's been a week since my last post. Before the nursing program I had no idea that school could be so hard. Have I been living in La-La Land or what? In one week I was expected to read 4 chapters for my pathophysiology (the study of disease) class and 6chapters for my nursing fundamentals class!! Let me tell you now, I have about half of it done... I spent my whole weekend studying for Patho and then realized on Monday that I hadn't read anything for my NUR 110 class. Despite the fact that the work load is so heavy, I am very excited about what it to come. :) I am taking an orientation class that is for the clinicals that will be in October. So far we have talked about what steps are included in passing oral medications. Now, you may think that passing meds is just, "Hi, here is your medication, take it." But it is so much more complex than that. You have to check the medication three times, correct medication, correct dosage, etc and you have to make sure you have your seven rights: right patient, right medication, right dosage, right time, right route, Right documentation and right reason. We have patients who scream at the nurse for not giving them their meds faster, but there is a lot of preparation in giving medicine. Nurses have to check for any allergies that the patient may have. Is the patient allergic to Furosemide? If they are, then they cannot get the Lasix that was precribed to them. Mistakes like these CAN occur, there can be multiple doctors working with one patient and sometimes there is no layover when it comes to passing information to a patient. Another thing to remember is that a nurse should always listen to the patient. The patient knows what they take at home, if they look at the nurse and say, "what is this pink pill? I always take a purple one." The nurse should always go back and check the orders. The med pass seems like such a simple thing, but nurses have a huge responsibility and need to do it right!