Challenging and sweet moments helped me grow as a student nurse
By Avery Tanton
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| At Golisano Children's Hospital |
What was your experiential learning this summer?
I was a nurse extern at the University of Rochester Golisano Children’s Hospital in the pediatric cardiac care center. I also spent a week at Camp Cory as a student nurse intern (a public health internship designed for nursing and public health double majors).
At Golisano Children’s Hospital, I worked two types of shifts.
- My 8-hour patient care technician shifts involved stocking rooms, helping clean up and/or set up patient rooms. Additionally, I went around the floor to the nurses to see if there were tasks they needed help with, including: moving patients, doing baby bed baths, grabbing any extra supplies from the stock room, answering calls, ordering more supplies, and playing with any children that needed a little extra love.
- On a nurse extern shift, I worked alongside one nurse who acted as my teacher and mentor this summer. She met me every shift I worked. We together received a report and went to the shift change safety huddle, then did safety checks in the patient’s room and then helped with patient care. I got to help give babies baths, feedings, preparing and fortifying bottles, dressing changes, and so much more.
At Camp Cory, I worked for a week alongside two nurses helping administer medications, triage, and care for campers. The week I was there, there were a large number of head injuries. Whether from sailing, falling, slip-n-slides, or even just sitting up too fast in the bunk beds, campers kept coming in for them. I also was allowed to help out with wound care and other first aid tasks such as removing splinters and using lots of band aids. Due to the heat, there were a lot of campers that came in due to dehydration, so I was able to practice taking manual vitals and assessing patients to ensure they were not suffering from heat stroke. When we had down time, I made ice packs, filled our water jug for medication passing times, changed sheets and linens on patient beds, helped email parents, and helped approve camper healthcare forms. Additionally, I helped record visits and perform many focused assessments on campers who came in. I loved getting to know the campers more throughout the week and experience meal times together with the staff in the dining hall. I got to see the magic and the fun that Camp Cory offers to each of its campers during the summer.
What did you learn?
At Golisano Children’s Hospital, I learned just how fast things can go awry in nursing. The patient population we treated was typically very young and very sick. Your heart is a vital organ and ensures you are being oxygenated. If it stops or slows, it’s terrifying how quickly it can cause a patient to decompensate. The nurses were amazing and incredibly skilled at problem solving and advocating for the patients.
I learned about a lot of different congenital heart defects and how they alter blood flow. This knowledge has allowed me to better understand how each part of the heart works and what to monitor if it’s anatomically untraditional. I also was able to see multiple kinds of heart rhythms in real time and learn what that means for the patient and ways that rhythms can be fixed. I also feel more confident in reading and understanding telemetry strips as all of the patients were on the heart monitors.
My nurse mentor on the floor always stressed the importance of being alert and truly understanding how each action you take will affect the patient. Additionally, she taught me how to set up and run different intravenous drugs, how to feed a baby orally and enterally, how to set up heart leads on a baby, and how to read an arterial and venous blood gas to help monitor oxygenation and electrolytes. I learned about ventilators and how they work, as many patients were on them. Although I am still terrified of them, I feel better able to help care for a patient receiving mechanical ventilation.
I now feel more confident when I go into clinicals and look at lab results for my patients. I am able to better understand the patient’s outlook and what I need to monitor for.
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| Dino theme week at Camp Cory! |
At Camp Cory, I learned a lot about interacting with children of different ages, as well as parents and other staff members. Each day, I met new people coming in with different complaints. Whether it was a nose bleed, a splinter, a head injury, or a pain that disguised homesickness, I learned how to quickly do a focused assessment and patient history.
Each day that passed, I became more confident in myself and trusted to help out with more patient care. I was able to check in on my own patients when they came in, learning the importance of building rapport and using therapeutic communication skills. I also learned just how busy camp nursing can be.
I hadn't realized that each day we would pass over 100 medications, record each one, and then see at least 20 other campers for injuries and ailments. We started at 7 a.m. and worked until about 10 p.m. I hadn't realized just how much camp nurses do, and I gained an incredible amount of respect for them. They helped build me up and constantly helped me learn and grow as a student nurse.
Camp nursing also showed me how big of an impact you can make on people each day. Many campers on their last day said thank you to all of us for helping them throughout the week. This small gesture meant so much to me as a student and a person.
Was there a moment or a challenge that really had an impact on you?
When working at the hospital in the pediatric cardiovascular intensive care unit, each shift was always different, some more intense than others. Congenital heart defects are extremely scary at times, especially pre and post operation. Each child has a long list of ways that their own heart defect can place them in critical condition. So each time I worked with a new patient, I knew that I had a whole new heart anatomy to learn. Although the task felt daunting, I learned to calm my nerves and explore the many possibilities of change in their status to prepare me for the worst and how to help in those situations.
When my nurse mentor trusted me to do what appeared to be simple tasks such as feeding and rocking a patient, it made me excited yet nervous, knowing just how vigilant I would need to be. Feeding a normal baby comes with less risk as they don’t have the feeding intolerance that comes with congenital heart defects. Feeding a baby with a congenital heart defect is just one of the many actions that can stress their heart, along with them being overtired and fussy.
The relief that I felt along with the pride each time I was successfully able to feed a patient, bathe a patient, soothe a patient, or help with patient care, grew my confidence. I found myself feeling connected with the patients and staff getting to truly be part of their care team, even in the smallest ways.
I watched my nurse mentor navigate many tricky situations with the help of other nurses on the floor especially when things went awry. The bonds between the staff and the joy that they brought their patients and their families was incredible to experience. Watching and helping the nurses navigate the strong emotions of family members through troubling times, showed me how much of a family the nursing staff is with the patients and their families. The raw emotion on everyone's face illustrated to me how impactful and important nurses are, especially at times of need.
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| Supporting campers' health and medical needs at Camp Cory. |
At Camp Cory, the fifth day of my nine days was the hardest. We had a ton of campers come into the infirmary throughout the day, especially during medication pass times. I felt exhausted. The only breaks we got that day were meal times, at least until dinner.
That night brought a constant stream of campers seeking medication, help for an ache or pain, and issues with wounds and rashes. I was utterly overwhelmed and shaken up from a dinnertime camper crisis and essentially no reprieve since lunch. After the chaos dissipated, and it was just me and the two nurses, I broke down. I had never been so emotionally, mentally, and physically pushed for that long. At that moment, I felt as if I had failed.
But in reality, it was a moment of humanity, understood by the nurses as real and raw. They told me that it made them feel as if they weren’t out of their mind for feeling very similarly after that challenging day. At that moment, I felt bonded as a team. I also realized how important it is to work together in nursing and to acknowledge your limits and feelings. Nursing is fueled by teamwork and trust, which was the only way I was able to make it through that week of camp. I will forever be grateful and will admire the two nurses I worked with.
Avery Tanton is a senior double majoring in nursing and public health, from Vestal High School, Vestal, N.Y. She is a member of the Nazareth field hockey team and was elected president of Nazareth University’s chapter of the National Student Nurses Association. Her mom graduated from Nazareth, which inspired her to attend. After graduation, Avery aspires to become a pediatric critical care nurse.
