The OR

This week I had my clinicals in the operating room (OR) at IMC in Murray. It was quite the experience! I really thought I'd be nauseous and maybe even pass out because normally I can't even stand to watch gruesome stuff like on TV, but it wasn't bad at all. I saw a laparoscopic cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal), internal fixation of an ankle, irrigation and debridement of an infected shoulder (even the surgeon was saying that it was disgusting as he was pulling out clumps of pus, haha!), a carotid endarterectomy (removing plaque from one of the neck arteries), and a spinal fusion. Unfortunately, I didn't get to scrub in BUT I did get to intubate a patient which means I stuck a breathing tube down someone's trachea. So cool!

During this experience, I thought about how fun it would be to be a scrub nurse and help surgeons with surgery. But then I kept thinking about how badly I want to work in the mother/baby unit. And then I thought about how great it'd be to be a school nurse and get teacher's vacation with a nurse's wage. But that's the great thing about becoming a nurse: I can easily change the field that I work in with just one degree. So I'm pretty thankful to be in the BYU nursing program!