Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Night shift and getting the hang of it all

I've been working nights for a couple weeks now and it's going well. My night preceptor is great and I've learned a lot from her. It was up in the air how long I'd be with her before I'm off orientation and working solo. At the end of last week, we both agreed that I needed more practice caring for unstable patients needing interventions such as vasoactive drip titration (regulating the dose of constantly delivered IV meds to keep heart rate and blood pressure within certain parameters) along with a second stable, but still critical patient. Managing both while still making and receiving calls, delivering scheduled medications, completing paperwork, and drawing labs, all within the alloted time, is a skill I've yet to completely master. Then of course I also have to be using critical thinking to work out what's needed when.

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