Last January 2011
"The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand."
- FRANK HERBERT
As a soon to be nurse (officially), we need to be exposed to different areas or field of nursing for further learning and exploration.
I do not usually stop by the school clinic for I seldom got sick during school days. So, I am basically not oriented on how everything works at the area. Thus, during my first day with my partner, I honestly do not know what to do and how to act. But, later on I was able to be accustomed on the environment. Little by little I was able to do task at hand independently like when I was able to inject hepatitis vaccine without the supervision of Ms. Charisma, the school nurse. I usually accompany Ms. Charisma to the emergency room whenever cases are needed to be referred to the E.R. of Olivarez General Hospital, such things were the school nurse’ responsibility. I learned what to do to a patient with a lacerated wound before delivering him/her to the emergency room. We were also thought on how to improvise splint.
Mostly, elementary and high school students stop by the clinic for relief of their complaints. School nurses are in charged of the student welfare as well as their safety and security. Thus, if a patient’s complaint wasn’t able to be relieved within 30 minutes to 1 hour, the clinic personnel’s contact the student’s parents.
The amazing part I was able to experience at the area was being familiarized with the dental equipment. Luckily, we had a chance of being a dental nurse once we were able to master those.
During my four days stay at the school clinic I was able to observe the advantages and disadvantages of being a school nurse.
Knowing the dental set up and instruments is one of the advantages of being a school nurse this could be consider as an edge compared to other who were not exposed at such orientation.
Information dissemination to faculty and students is another one, being an health educator is one of the core competencies of being a nurse.
One disadvantage I was able to observe is there’s no room for improvement in terms of complex knowledge since the cases in the clinic were just repetitive. Maximization of nursing skills rendered were only limited.
Given a choice, it would be okay for me to work at the clinic but once I am no longer contented I would look for a different field that would pacify the growth of my competency.
"Lahat ng bilihin nagmamahalan na...tayong dalawa nalang ang hindi..."
