Hi, I'm Alpine, and I'll be your Nurse Today!

I still gulp when I say that, because it takes that heartbeat to realize that I'm NOT the student, I'm The Nurse. It has MY name on the whiteboard in the patient's room, just above that of the LNA. I'm still like "woaaaah" when I see it, and half the time I want to erase it, and write in the name of my preceptor, because my name on that board MEANS SOMETHING. It means that I'm actually making some of my own decisions now, (not all, I mean, c'mon- I'm still on orientation) and I go into EVERY patient's room with the thought, deep in my head, that this could be the day I accidentally kill someone, or that someone crumps on me and I have no idea what to do.

Not to say that I wouldn't like to get in on a code one of these days, I just don't want it to be MY patient (again, it's not that I want bad things to happen to people. I don't. I just want to be there if/when they do...because there's nothing that gets my brain going faster than trying to save someone's life in a true emergency).

I have also realized that, by trying to take my dad's advice on Looking Professional, I can wind up looking EXTREMELY depressing- all (ALL) my scrubs (still so excited that I get to wear scrub tops) are either navy, ceil blue, light blue-green, or black. The bottoms are navy, grey, or black. My mother calls me her "little black raincloud", and one of the managers has started to as well. Much as I hate to admit it, this might be a time to get a purple or, dare i say it, PRINTED scrub top (one of those nice Moroccan prints, with solid edging...prints of THINGS make me look like I'm playing dress-up, or that I'm a 12 year old in footie pjs).

But I'm hanging in there. I actually snapped at a neuro-surgical resident yesterday though- I was doing a narc-count for the Pyxis- you know, the ones you have to do after you get a dose out- when he asked if I would pull up a patient's vital sign page in the new electronic record. I held up one finger, trying to maintain my count (seriously, there were something close to sixty pills to count, and i get distracted easily) but he simply didn't get it. He said "NOW if you don't mind, I'm Very Busy!". I kinda snapped- whirled around, told him that I was COUNTING, and had forgotten my number, and now he was going to have to wait while I did it All Over Again. I also pointed out that HE could access the ENTIRE medical record on the computer at his elbow.

After I finished counting, he admitted that he'd never taken the time to learn HOW to use the record. He ALWAYS asked the nurses to pull the page up for him. Somehow this bodes ill for his patients, I think.