Monday, 28 May 2007
ICU
I am in ICU at SCGH for my cardio placement at present. It is very intense (as the name suggests!) but am learning a lot. The patients range in abilities and what they can do which makes it so interesting...we even stood a guy last Friday who was in for cardiogenic shock and he marched on the spot for us! What I am struggling to come to terms with is the medical terminology and abbreviations used eg. the medical obs chart is huge and filled with values such as MG, Ca, Na, K, Urea, Creat, INR, APTT. When we do treatments we must also monitor all the ICp, CVP, MAP, BP, RR, VT, etc and whilst I am concentrating on practicing my suctioning/bagging it's difficult to check that everything is stable for the patient. Needless to say I am exhausted by the end of every day! Just wondering if anyone else is feeling overwhelmed by really sick unstable patients too?
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Wow! I went to ICU for a just a quick look around and straight away was overwhelmed by all the screens and machines and MASSIVE obs charts, so I can mildly understand where you are coming from. There is always so many things to think about and just when you think you've got a handle on it... there's Something else! I am currently on my prac at RPH Hands and Upper limbs and I can relate to that feeling of not really having much experience in the area and feeling a little exhausted by the end of the day. I guess our supervisors know what we have and haven't been exposed to and so as long as we are willing to try and showing that we are interested, I think most supervisors will take that into account and be fairly accomodating. All the best with the rest of your prac!
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