Head to Toe

Today I had my physical assessment test. I had 30 minutes to review 9 body systems on my lab partner: mental, HEENT, respiratory, cardiac, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, musculoskeletal, neurological, and integumentary. It was pass/fail. I was very nervous. I had planned on reviewing for about thirty minutes before we started, but ran into some nursing students who wanted to chat. Needless to say I didn't look over anything. I am a pretty confident person in regard to most things. I don't usually get too nervous. But, of course, right before it started I got nervous. I was so nervous I was shaking, which is unfortunate when you are trying to monitor someones pulse rate (luckily, I wasn't giving a shot). I then got going on my assessment and got really out of order. But I finally settled down and recovered quite well. I only ended up forgetting about 2 things. Needless to say I passed.

Then I had to do the written aspect of the physical assessment. Unfortunately it was not pass/fail but graded. I had two hours to write up an exhaustive note on my findings from the physical assessment. I didn't think I would need two hours, but it ended up that I did. It came to 5 pages. In reality, I'll probably never write up a 5 page physical assessment as a nurse. But I'm glad to know how to do it and how to do it right.

One component of our physical assessment skills test was professionalism. So, we had to wear our Vandy scrubs today, complete with a Vandy patch on the left shoulder. It was fun, made me feel like the real thing.

Oh yeah, I cut my hair this week.