Eighth Week of Nursing School

November 12^th, 2012

Dear New Clinical Site,

            Today I had to wake up early to make the trek to uptown New York for my new clinical placement since the hospital I was previously assigned to was evacuated during Hurricane Sandy. I didn’t think getting there was going to be a problem, but I ended up getting lost along the way and was bit late even though I left my place 1.5 hours before I was supposed to be there. This made me worried for what might happen if I am placed out of Manhattan in the upcoming semesters. I heard from other students that the new location was a nursing home facility. Since I had previously worked as a nurse aide in California, I was kind of disappointed that our new clinical location was not a hospital because I wanted more exposure to the hospital setting. Once I arrived I found the facility was a lot nicer than other nursing homes I had worked at. Unfortunately, my opinions changed as the day progressed and I will explain in a little bit.

            My clinical group ended up being placed on a floor where the majority of the residents could perform their activities of daily living and required little help from us. I was glad that we were not assigned specific residents to attend to because this gave me a chance to get to know a variety of personalities. Just like my previous nursing home experiences, I knew I could become to some of the residents I talked to. This makes me wonder if I want to work in geriatrics because I don’t know if I could handle if one of the residents I become attached to passes away.

            Now to talk about why my opinion changed on the nursing home. Although the facility was nicer, more spacious, and clean, the employees were definitely lacking in quantity and quality. Our clinical instructor ended up reporting an employee for taunting one of the residents. What had happened was that after lunch time ended and the cafeteria was being cleaned up, a resident became very upset with the nutritional employee because the nutritional employee was not professional at all. The nutritional employee continued to taunt and joke around with the aggravated resident, and the resident became more and more agitated. Another reason I became distraught was that when a continent resident needed to go to the restroom, there were no PCTs on the floor and when they were summoned over the intercom they just took their sweet time and didn't end up helping the resident until a good 10 minutes. The lack of professionalism shown by the staff is not acceptable.

            On a more positive note, I did meet nice residents and each had her own special personality. One resident with dementia was truly a very nice lady but was also very defensive due to cultural differences. I realized that this particular resident was very focused on racial discrimination because she had mentioned several times about how "Blacks" were overrun by the "Whites" and also that I had "oriental eyes" and if I had lived in the south back in her day I would be overrun as well. Although I felt awkward about responding to her racial defensiveness, I felt like it was an essential lesson learned on how to deal with cultural competency situations. In addition to the conversations I had with the residents, I enjoyed the time our clinical group spent covering current events and holding an exercise circle. The happy expressions on the residents' faces is evidence that socialization events are essential to create a tight knit community, encourage social interaction, and create a comfortable environment for the residents to live in.

Until Next Time,

Clos3tGirlyGirl