Because our Nursing School was part of the hospital, we attended classes for only six weeks before being assigned to a General Medicine ward in the hospital. What could we do on the wards for four hours with the knowledge we gained in six weeks?  Even though we had been assured that we wouldn’t be expected to do anything that had not been addressed in class, it was still a scary experience.

After attending morning report from the night staff, we met with the head nurse who gave us our assignments; distribute ice water jugs to each patient, greeting them with our best smile and cheery ‘Good Morning’! By the time we had completed that assignment, breakfast trays would have arrived from the hospital kitchen. If there were any patients who needed help with their breakfast, a student nurse was assigned to them, even to feed the patient who was not able sit up.

We knew about bed baths and back rubs, having practiced on fellow students, and now we had the real patients who seemed to appreciate the service for the most part. There were a few patients who were about as shy as we were, but with the help of our Clinical Instructor, we soon learned to use some gentle persuasion while hiding our own trepidation. Distributing and collecting bed pans after breakfast was not as easy as one may think, but we also knew it was a necessary duty that would soon become routine. We also checked vital signs… pulse, respirations, and blood pressure, and recorded our findings in the patients’ charts. One question, that was most difficult for us ‘newbies’ because it seemed much too personal, can best be expressed by a conversation that I have never forgotten. The conversation between my classmate and a hard-of-hearing elderly gentleman was something like this:

“Good morning, Mr. Smith. Please put this thermometer under your tongue, and close your mouth around it. I also want to check your blood pressure.” After checking these vital signs and recording them in her notebook, she leaned closer to Mr. Smith and said in a quiet voice (almost a whisper!), “Have you had a B.M. today?”

“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you!” said Mr. Smith in a loud voice.

Using a slightly louder voice, my classmate repeated her question, but Mr. Smith still couldn’t hear or understand the question.

Exasperated, my classmate said in a much louder voice, heard by other patients in the same room, “Mr. Smith, did you have a sh- - today?” The Clinical Instructor also heard the question as she entered the room, and my classmate was firmly beckoned out of the room, for a severe verbal reprimand and a bit of “re-education”!

Tags: Education Hospital Classrooms