Maternal Child

Ok, until now, I haven't really felt too much from being a male in nursing school, however, this is class is totally different!

The way this class goes is a bit different. For the first two weeks, I'm in mother-baby. Then, two weeks in pediatrics, then two weeks in labor and delivery. So right now, I'm in mother-baby. Out of this two week block, week one is taking care of the mom, and week two is taking care of the baby.

This is a totally different kind of nursing. Feels like I'm back in Nursing 101. It's one thing to question and assess older patients, but these patients are young and, for the most part, healthy. It's another thing entirely to assess the patient's perineum and breasts; this is typically awkward since most of the women are around my age... most even younger! This can be such an uncomfortable situation; thankfully, I always have at least one or two female students, nurses, or instructors with me. I think in a trauma situation, this doesn't really apply, but when people are feeling pretty much ok, it's a really awkward thing to have to do this reproductive assessment. If you're a man in this rotation, pray you get a good, understanding (and preferably over 30) patient. I did, and the initial awkwardness got over with quite quickly.

I'm going back to class today and tomorrow I'll be taking care of babies in the nursery which is absolutely really cool. Much better than teenage moms. This is a really cool job and I can't wait until my NICU rotation in my RN year; part of my inspiration of doing nursing school was the NICU nurses at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore and the great work they did with a family friend's premature babies.

This class is moving quick. The information, for the most part, is nowhere near as comprehensive as my previous twelve week shift in hell. Once you get the foundation of nursing information down, you just build on it, and I don't think this is going to be nearly as tough.

In other news, I've still been unable to afford my textbook, which totally sucks because this class is very heavy on the reading.

Also, 95% of the Nursing Student Organization (henceforth known as the 'NSO') just graduated! So there's essentially like two people running the whole thing. I have a feeling a whole new responsibility is about to fall in my lap...

A Much Needed Break is Ending

Ok, so I survived Med-Surg nursing!

After a break from this blog, school, and pretty much everything else, it's back to the grind starting Monday in my maternal-child nursing class.

I've got all my tuition paid up but I'm short of funds to get my book until I've been in the class for a few days. That sucks because I technically have a reading assignment I can't even do until I get the book!

The good news: this course is only 6 weeks long! It runs from 5/17 to 6/30. That's much less intense than my med-surg course which lasted from 1/17 until 5/1. I'm pretty happy about that.

The bad news: I don't get a break in between this class and the next, psychiatric nursing. I need breaks to keep me from totally burning out.

The even-worse-than-that news: I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to approach my RN year. I still need academic classes completed to get my degree and stacking those on top of my nursing class and two jobs is completely undoable. These are the scenarios I'm looking at:

1. Quit my full-time job and work as an LPN. Work two 18 hours shifts on the weekend, one shift during the week, and go to school fulltime and be eligible to sit for the NCLEX-RN in the spring of 2011.
2. Keep working at my full-time job, do the academic classes first, then go into the RN program in January and be eligible to sit for the NCLEX-RN in the Fall of 2011.
3. Keep working at my full-time job, do all the academic classes I can online, then after the final RN class, I can do finish up the academic classes that I'm not able to do in the summer (like microbiology).

So it's a tough choice and I'm really kicking it around. I'm reluctant to leave my fulltime job because I have a mortgage to make and bills to pay for a large family. Only time will tell... I'm so indecisive and it's getting time to be making a career change I think!! (That makes me incredibly nervous...)