First Day!

I survived the first day!  It was actually a pretty good day with interesting material.  Class today, Health Assessment and Interventions, started at 9 and ran until 12, then the lab portion of the class picked up at 1 and stretched on until 4.  Lecture began with infection control, and we watched a video about ways we can prevent the spread of infection.  Then, after lunch, we applied what we had learned and had lab check-off of hand washing!  Never before have I experienced being scrutinized and graded on handwashing.... except maybe in like Kindergarten.  Not that I am discounting the importance of handwashing; it is the front line in infection control.  It just struck me as somewhat funny.

Anyways, after handwashing, we started on Is & Os, or intakes and outputs.  This was actually a pretty interesting presentation.  We were shown a plate of food and asked to guess what counted as an intake.  Now, technically, everything was an intake, but in terms of Is & Os, only liquids.  Liquids, though, include things that can melt down into liquids.  So, ice cream is a great example, but Jell-O also falls into this category.  Outputs are similar-- only liquids.  I'll leave it at that, other than to say that this led into showing us all different kinds of drains.  So, on one of the dummies we have to practice on, the adjunct lab instructor had a Jackson-Pratt drain, a nasogastric tube, a Hemovac, and a Foley catheter.  We also got to see a chest tube, and learned how we would use it; rather than drain it every eight hours, they make a mark on where the fluid level is.  Kind of a neat device; it has a section that the drainage goes into, and if that column fills up, the drainage then spills into the next column over.

Anyways, it's been kind of a long, information-overloaded day, and I am anticipating some delicious sleep tonight, so off to bed early for me.  Starting early tomorrow with more Health Assessment and Interventions lecture, and then at 1, we begin on Pathophysiology!  Yay!!