Monday, August 24, 2009

First day!

Got out early from orientation today! wooo!
So, basically we went over how the program runs: 10 weeks, lots of online modules, clinical time, and sim lab time. Got my book!! We're using this:

Thelan's Critical Care Nursing



We had to take a BKAT (Basic Knowledge Assessment Test), which they told us most people do not do well on at all. In fact, the majority get in the 60's to low 70's. And they expected this since we hadn't received the content yet. The exam was 100 questions and was all clinical stuff. I got 77%!! The instructor said I did "very well." That felt good. Apparently, we take the same exam at the end and they expect us to get at least 15 points higher. It is mostly just to gauge how THEY were doing as instructors, as well.

The day also consisted of a video from Dr. Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio on interpretation of ABGs since there will be an exam on that next week!

What else....what else? Ah, we watched a video from American Heart Association on the roles of different people during a code, which I had already seen since I took ACLS, but it was a good review.

Finally, we covered airway management and RIS (rapid intubation sequence). All of this included intubation facts, different airways, and the drugs for intubation, like sedatives, paralytics, etc. Fun, fun, fun!

I also met with my educator from the unit and she gave me my schedule. Looks like I'll be starting on Wednesday and Thursday. The cool part is that for the next two months I will not be working on the weekend!! Yay, this is awesome because of Mirza's schedule.

First module: pulmonary! Better get to work.

1 comments:

Susan said...

I'm so excited to hear about your transition to critical care since I hope to be doing that myself in the future! (I may sound like a broken record in all my comments...haha)