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Veterans Regional Hospital and Trauma Center (VRH&TC) September 2012 Exams and essays every week. Skits and hospital crisis situations to study. Drug dosages and their mechanisms of actions to memorize. Nursing school was no joke; in fact, at the time I could have sworn it was the hardest thing I had ever attempted. But textbooks dont bleed. Dummies arent real. Flashcards arent at the tips of my fingers anymore now. Im a brand new nurse working in the intensive care unit. I am attracted to critical care nursing because of the challenges and rewards of taking care of very sick patients in a fast paced environment. Here in the SICU my nursing skills are crucial to the patient's survival and my role continues to evolve. Its a circle. You work yourself from beyond the outside in, leaning on experienced preceptors and nurse managers. I received an overwhelming amount of support from the Specialty Nurse Trainees ahead of me and my preceptors, the nurses from the RNHeals Program, and mentor, the Regular Nurses, the experienced SICU RN. They often tell me that the first year in the ICU is just like school; after work you must go home and study everything that was new to you that day. I did what they told me. I gave more time in reading and reviewing my Medical-Surgical notes. Now that I am a bona fide nurse and practicing my skills to actual clients, more responsibility and care are rested onto my hands. People ask me what is the biggest change in nursing over the years, and my answer is advancements in both technology and medications and also the patients themselves. Many of the patients I care for in the SICU would not be alive 10 or 20 years ago. New technology and medications are wonderful in that they give more patients a chance to survive and live longer but the problem is that when they come to me, patients are now more acutely ill than ever before. The bottom line is that patients now need more care and attention from the nurse. The assumption is that with the developments in technology and medications there is less need for the care by a nurse. But the opposite is true. The more need for the care by a nurse to the client. High-end Scans and State-of-the-Art Machines may worth millions but are useless in the absence of a skilled nurse. We nurses should be more keen and skilled now that we have these technologies. There are things that advance machineries cannot do and provide. That is what we are here for. Learning is a step by step process. In critical care nursing, first comes the responsibility of learning how to be safe; such as learning safety checks and what supplies and alarms need to be set up in the event of an emergency. Then come simple tasks, such as turning patients and monitoring their vital signs. More complex tasks; drawing frequent labs, understanding what lab values mean, and communicating with the health care team soon follow. The nurse is often the first health care provider to pick up on signs of poor organ function or poor body perfusion Ive learned how to voice these things to my team. One of the most intense experiences I experienced was coming back from a procedure. My patients oxygen saturation monitor was quickly trending downward. By the time we reached the patient it was reading in the 70s. I remember immediately activated the code and having the full support of my fellow nurses, charge nurse, clinical lead, respiratory therapists and physicians. I answered questions about what happened during the procedure and followed orders from physicians. Failure to recognize a problem is failure to render care. Julius del Rosario Jr., BSN, RN
Failure to recognize a problem is failure to render care. Julius del Rosario Jr., BSN, RN