Clinical Reflection Free Write

I am sitting here in my "Ante" Corner tonight.  This is my fourth week in my dark, quiet, little corner.  (Antepartum).  I came back to the nursing field last July.  Working at St. Alphonsus in Boise in the Family Maternity Center and love it.  One problem, I feel like I am two different people.

The first woman is a busy mom of three kiddos ages 1, 3, and 5 trying to keep life fun, educational, and CLEAN for my youngsters.  While trying to exercise, running the household, keeping the kids clothed, increasing my personal development, and an occasional craft or two. 

The second person is a professional obstetric nurse trying to advance skills, training, and experience.  I love being a nurse, but in all honest I love being a mother more, and who could blame me with my cuties!  Although my position as a registered nurse is paid it has always felt more to me than that.  I get to experience life-altering events as a baby joins a family.

Being a nurse is exciting, fast paced, and sometimes the adrenaline rush is amazing.  So much that it can be a craving.  When I come home after my three day stretch my three year old says, "I miss you, Mama,” giving me a big hug.  I wish I never had to leave him, or the others. The joggle is hard, when those two very different women are forced to become one it can be difficult, but both are so rewarding.

Things are different at this hospital compare to Little Old Moscow when I worked at Gritman.  There we did anywhere from 30-50 deliveries a months.  At St. Als we do 130-150 deliveries a month.  Granted we have four times the staff, but it still feels quaint compared to a large city where those numbers are drops in a bucket.  We are equipped to handle high-risk patients because of our level III NICU upstairs.  We do get high-risk patient which include non-English speaking refugees, patients with drug use, and patients with all kinds of complications in pregnancy.

It is amazing how much is the same after being gone two years, and yet much has changed.   New advances, more case studies, and research to giving us evidence-based practice.  Also, that I have been in nursing longer enough to stay, "well, we used to do that, but now we see that this way is better."  I have been able to experience so many new things.

First off, I get to circulate in surgery.   We do our own cesarean sections on our unit.  I was very nervous about this, since I had no prior experience.  A few weeks ago, I assisted the surgeons to place a Bakri balloon, which is used for temporary control or reduction of postpartum hemorrhage.  It can be used after a vaginal delivery or c-section.  It is a fairly new apparatus so it was almost fun to walk through the procedure with the physicians as a team.  We had a great in-service about it so I felt like I was well informed and able to relay my knowledge without hesitation.

Nursing has changed drastically from when my Grandmother was a nurse 45 years ago.  She talks of surgeons cursing at nurses and throwing surgical instruments at them.  Now, we are a team.  A Health Care Team all driven for the welfare, safety, and satisfaction of are patients.   I am glad I am a nurse now, although I you know I would not mind wearing the dress and cap!

I have to write a "clinical reflection" to advance in my clinical ladder.  Clinical ladder means pay increase and advancement in nursing at the facility.  It seems difficult to focus amidst my duties and patient care at work to sit and write.  At home I have too many other things I would like to spend my time on.  When I am at home, I don't want to think about work.  Everything for my packet is done the education, the personal professional points, except this little essay, as you will about a critical thinking situation. 

I really don't like to write, or a least formally.  I look back at nursing school and wonder how I wrote all those papers.  For some strange reason my mind has opened up tonight as I thought of writing this reflection as a blog post.  Maybe less daunting, or maybe I am just more comfortable writing a journal entry, then a formal paper.  Whatever the case . . . I am writing it.