Norfolk General Hospital School of Nursing - PRN Yearbook (Norfolk, VA)

Page 38 text:

5 as if K! :C :N H -me - Q Q w Q W can t 5 N sf' I fi la 1 - Q...-a-e' , Q ' w f a 'ni ..., . ess iii W sw eg, , H f l- We came! Q wr Teamwork is .i' Day is done. Recreational Therapy Ty cmfkzfry Fear of the unknown was a common place emotion, especially when we entered psychiatric nursing on the 9th floor. Total patient care, classes, films, and doctors lectures helped give us a wider view of the psychiatric problems on the ward. As we advanced through this phase of education, we further learned the need for companionship, under- standing and tolerance. Not only did we learnthese vital human needs, but we also learned how to use our knowledge. Daily patient contact, interaction with patients, dis- cussions with the psychiatrists and evaluations of our own feelings in regard to the patients, helped create a very worthwhile educational period. The mental health problems, we could use and understand in a clearer view. Acceptance of it, as we learned, was of prime importance. We left the specialty with a deeper understanding and acceptance of this leading illness. Yes, to the 9th floor, we came. We saw. We Conquered? 32

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wk 1 ik H ., l 1. Ho1d your hands across your chest. Relax! t O6lYfQff1CS With amazement, gratitude and a firmer belief in miracles, we experienced three months of Obstetrical Nursing. Maternity, Delivery Room, and Nursery enabled us to gain knowledge in all obstetri- cal phases, with additional experience in the Out-Patient Obstetrical Clinic. From this valuable phase of nursing education, we learned efficient professional obstetrical nursing, but as equally important, if not more, was the lesson of the value of human life. We learned, too, from experience, that obstetrics was not always continuous hap- piness, for the patient, for the doctors, or for the nurse. Skilled and joyous reception of a new life at times resulted in the sudden events, further broadening our scope of understanding. We completed this specialty with deeper comprehension of obstetrics with greater knowledge of anatomical and physiological factors, and most certainly with a greater appreciation of human lives. That wasn't so bad, now was it? His name? Leonardo de Vinci, of course.

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ff' Isn't this ridiculous? I'll contaminate myself as soon as I set-up anyway. That doctor neveri He needs 51! S satisfied with 50 hemastats. perabkzy fy? 00122 The swinging doors marked Surgery, No Admit- tance we met with hesitation, yet with marked eager- ness. Stepping into the operating room greens with cap, mask and conductive shoes, we immediately found our places as operating room nurses. Within two days after beginning this specialty,we were no longer observers. With rapidity we were swept into the active, precise functioning as scrub nurses and circulating nurses for the surgeons. No longer did we have to see sketches of the bodies' interior. There we saw it in action, felt its pathology, and better understood its mystery. Efficiency, speed, and accuracy developed steadily. Minor set ups to major ones soon afforded no difference in these three important characteristics of a well- functioning O.R. nurse. Recovery room experience was included in the O.R. education. There we learned skilled and precise im- mediate post-operative care, with knowledge and ex- perience in handling of complications arising. As we left this specialty, we took with us a sounder knowledge of anatomy and physiology, a prime under- standing of surgical procedures, concerning operative andpost-operative complications. Also, with these, we took with us stronger stomachs, burning ears Cand two hemastats eachl. 33 Irrigate q5minutes until clear.