I had a great clinical week, we're only at the hospital 2 days a week, but a lot can happen in that time. Wednesday afternoon we go to the hospital for a 2-hour data collection, where we are assigned our patient and we collect pertinent data from the patient's chart that we can use to understand the patients condition and research any medical conditions we're not familiar with. We're also learning about and giving medications so we take down a list of medications they're taking and understand what each one is for and why they're taking it. It's a lot of research and paperwork, but we truly do learn a lot.

So I get to the hospital yesterday, Thursday, and my patient is still in the hospital, meaning she hasn't been discharged (yay!) so I don't have to research another patient on short notice. Well, she doesn't require too much care beyond a few medications and maybe some walking as she's able. Usually when we don't have anything else to do we tend to research the patient's chart information on the computerized charting system or we see if a classmate needs assistance with their patient. When you're only assigned one patient for now and you manage your time well, boredom can sometimes set in when you've got nothing left to do for a bit. Sometimes we wander the halls to see if there's any interesting procedures going on in any other rooms. One of my classmates actually told us her patient was going to be getting a cast placed on her arm, so a few of us students slipped in and we got to watch. None of us had ever seen a cast placement, and believe it or not, none of us had broken a bone so we had no personal experience of a cast placement. So that was my Thursday.

Today I had the same patient again, (WooHoo!) So it was smooth sailing again, and my awesome clinical instructor discovered a patient was going to have a wound dressing change and told a few of us students to go watch! If you don't like blood, open wounds, drainage, mangled skin, don't watch. Personally, I thought it was awesome. Me and another student were able to observe, and the way they change the dressing can be very painful to the patient but it needs to be done. It's usually done every 3 days. Some wounds tend to have a lot of drainage, so they attach what's called a Wound-Vac.

There's a photo I found on the web of what one looks like, the black thing is a piece of foam to help absorb drainage that's then sucked up via a suction box through a tube. Wound-Vac's have only been in use for about 5 years now, and studies and practice have shown that wounds heal SO much faster than just simply dressing the wound alone. The first dressing change I observed was on a man's leg, caused by a mo-ped accident which resulted in a broken bone that protruded (stuck out) through the skin, leaving an open wound exposed down to the muscle. The second wound change I watched was on an elderly woman's abdomen, I didn't get to find out the cause of the wound, but it was very large and open down to the bowels, or intestines. I definitely learned a lot from watching it all.

Ok I think that's enough grodi-ness for today, hope ya'll have a great weekend!