First Year Reflection
After my first year of nursing school, I know more about the type of nurse I plan on becoming. I have learned that not only do nurses make a lot of mistakes, but also they abuse their privileges as a nurse. I want to possess the knowledge and the skills that will prevent me from making silly mistakes. I know that mistakes are part of life and that everyone’s human, but people put their lives in your hands because they trust you to take care of them. I don’t want to let my patients down. I want to follow all the needed procedures to help a patient and I want to make their day better by helping them.
I still have no clue the specialty of nursing that I want to go into, but I have found subjects that interest me more than others. For example, I love learning about the heart and all the chambers, arteries, and veins it has. There is so much to learn within that system of the body. Also, I find it fascinating because my dad had a heart attack, so that idea of helping people like my dad would be special to me. Another specialty I enjoy is pediatrics because I love kids. I have always enjoyed coaching kids in softball and tutoring them in school. The idea of being around kids nonstop is exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. I am very open to other specialties as well because I am not going to know what I like until I try it. I plan to decide and keep my options open until I go on my clinical rotations.
This first year was a great experience and I cannot wait until next year when we start the hands on part of nursing!
Second Year Reflection
After my second year of nursing school, I have learned so much about being a nurse! I learned so many skills like how to insert a nasogastric tube, inserting a Foley catheter, cleaning a wound, inserting an IV, and so many others. I have grown as a student and a person because I have learned to care for people. My clinical experiences have opened my eyes to being more patient with people and understanding that everyone is grateful for the help that nurses provide. Helping with these patients could be sitting with them and talking about their family and about our lives as students. Also, by making them feel safe makes them more comfortable around me, and allows us to form a deeper bond, and provide better care to my patient. These experiences at the Woodland will always be remembered because it is my first time caring for real patients. I will never forget the first patient I performed an Accucheck on and administered my first shot on one of them.
I know these experiences have opened my eyes to the real side of nursing! I have learned that I do not want to care for the geriatric community. It seems too slow for me and I want to be in a little bit more of a fast-paced environment. Also, I still have the idea of caring for patients with cardiac problems or children. Hopefully, next year I am able to experience these patients and it will help me decide what areas I find more interesting to be in. Also, next year I hope to learn even more about the nursing field! I am even more excited about learning about the different medications because that seems to be kicking my butt this year!
I cannot wait for the exciting adventures to come in my junior year of nursing school!
Third Year Reflection
After my third year of nursing school, I am still in a way nowhere close to deciding what I want to do with my life. I feel like senior year and graduation are fast approaching and it gets scarier because I don’t know what I want to do. As this semester has progressed I think I have decided more and more that I am going to do general nursing on a medical surgical floor and then reevaluate once I have been in the field for a little bit. I think I need to gain more confidence in my skills and practice these skills on a person. I need to learn more about the nursing field as a whole through practice and trial and error. I want to find the area that I like the most, and I want to try and experience as much as possible.
Also, this year I have been given the opportunity to learn more about the real world of nursing. I have been in a hospital setting, and learned so much since sophomore year. I never thought I would have given so many medicines, and learned from other nurses in the field and my patient’s who I have cared for. I never thought I could gain the experience I have, but I still feel like I am so unprepared for the real world of nursing. I am so glad to have been able to learn about the different disciplines of nursing as well. Spring of junior year has given me the opportunity to learn about patients that are younger than eighteen. It’s a different type of patient compared to the adult, which is what we had learned about up until now. This semester has inspired me to look forward to the fall of senior year because it’s a new style patient.
I hope that senior year brings new experiences and more excitement for my final year!
Final Reflection
After completing my internship at Inova Fair Oaks hospital in the Float Pool I have learned so much about myself and I think where I would like to end up. During my internship I have been given so many opportunities to learn and grow and I was able to see the more critical side of nursing. In school, I didn’t really get to see the critical care side like ICU and emergency department. I have coded 6 patients and been able to take care of very critical patients that needed attention ASAP. My nurse Kim is an amazing teacher and explains the different ideas to me and really helps me fine tune my skills. I have been given the opportunity to grow and really think on my own. She lets me take charge and do everything myself as the time has continued during my internship. We kinda follow the role of talk about it, watch it, and the do it.
I will be starting my registered nurse career at Inova Fair Oaks in the Surgical Orthopedic unit. I am excited to learn on a different floor and be able to become very efficient in my care and prioritization skills. Then I don’t think I want to stay on a standard nursing floor and I think I really want to be able to do critical care. I plan to learn as much as I can on the surgical unit and fine tune skills and get a routine down and then move on because I want to learn as much as I can. I think I want to go to the ICU because then I can learn more about critical care and see those invasive patients who require very intense care. Plus then I can learn about titrating drips and finding the right balance to keep the patient in stable conditions. I like the challenge of it and the ability to learn the exact physiology behind things.
I really want a challenge in life and that’s what I have determined from this whole experience. I don’t want to be too comfortable all the time and I want to think and challenge myself to do better in nursing. I want to be involved at the hospital like I have been at Longwood. I want to take advantage that life has to offer and learn and grow. I am really excited for where life takes me and where I will be. I feel like nursing is so diverse and I keep changing what I want to do and experience. However, I know where ever I end up I want to learn and think out of the box.
Thanks Longwood for challenging me and allowing me to grow and learn about the type of person I want to become. I hope to make Longwood proud and be that citizen leader that they strive for us to be!