job shadow

on tuesday i spent the day at my (hopefully) future place of employment, job-shadowing a nurse. it was a pretty good day, although unfortunately it was unusually slow and there were no women in labour. in fact, if this would have been a day at clinical, rather than a day of job-shadowing, it still would have felt like a slow day. i guess the disappointing thing was just that i wanted to see how a crazy day goes where the nurse has to balance obstetrical patients and surgical patients and how that works. but as it was, i could have easily just done everything my nurse did that day. i didn't do a thing, but watch. i couldn't do a thing - at least, i'm pretty sure that i couldn't, since i'm not licenced (obviously) and i didn't have an instructor there like in clinical... i'm not sure what the legalities are, so i just watched. i even watched her do vitals, which is something we've been doing since first year. so... it felt kind of dumb sometimes.

however.... it was a good day nonetheless, and i can totally see myself working there. good to know! anytime i was introduced to someone, whoever was introducing me would say, "...and she's going to do her senior practicum here" or "....and we're trying to convince her to work here when she graduates."

it's very different in a rural hospital, especially in your hometown. it felt like i grew up there, and have been gone for 7 years and now i've returned. ...oh wait, i guess that's exactly what happened. the hospital is small - which is nice - and even though i was only there for 8 hours, i recognized a lot of people - nurses, patients, doctors. i have a friend (who convinced me to go into nursing in the first place) on that ward right now, a friend who is an x-ray tech there, etc. i was chatting with some of the doctors there - i used to babysit 2 of the doctor's kids back when i was in junior high. crazy.

but yes, it was a very encouraging day.