![]() Learning Goal #1: I will learn if I like working with/around children in a medical field setting such as a hospital/urgent care in order to determine if this is a field I wish to pursue as a career. Goal Completion Date: 11/12/2017 Date Completed: 10/29/2017 Evidence of obtaining this goal: __________________________________________ Learning Goal #2: I will gain patient-care experience and table-side manners in order to help the patient and parents feel more comfortable. Goal Completion Date: 11/20/2017 Date Completed: 11/15/2017 Evidence of obtaining this goal: I feel that I have gained patient-care experience and table-side manners. I now feel comfortable being around the patients and families and have no issue interacting with them. I know that most of the patients and families feel comfortable with me in the room due to a couple of things. First, the patients usually have no problem interacting with me when I ask them any questions. The parents also tend to make eye contact with me when talking about their child and will laugh. I have had no experiences where the patients and/or families did not feel comfortable with me in the room. For table-side manners, I have leaned towards staying somewhat by the door or corner of the room in order for the doctor to get a good assessment and diagnosis of the patient. I often smile and like to give off a friendly vibe for everyone in the room. When I talk, I make sure to do so with the doctor’s permission and make eye contact with whomever I am talking to. If a child comes up to me I am not one to shy away from playing with them as well. When it is finally time for the patient and their family to leave, I always like to tell them to have a great day and say goodbye to the patient. I believe this leaves a good impression on the patient and their family, both from me and the Urgent Care perspective. ___________________________________________ Learning Goal #3: I will be more involved with the different positions at the urgent care (RN, Suture Tech, etc.) in order to see what else I might possibly be interested in. Goal Completion Date: 12/1/2017 Date Completed: 11/26/2017 Evidence of obtaining this goal: Click here! ___________________________________________ Learning Goal #4: I will improve my time management skills further and learn to organize a variety of events on my time off in order to decrease my stress level. Goal Completion Date: 11/1/2017 Date Completed: 10/25/2017 Evidence of obtaining this goal: I have loved the free time I have been granted! During the months of August and October, I had marching band practice after school almost every day. Because I did not have 7th and 8th period, I spent my time in the library working on college applications. This helped reduce my stress immensely! Now that all of my college applications have been submitted, I know use my free time to either work in the library with friends on homework or projects, work on a variety of tasks for my different clubs, or return home to relax and get personal things done. Without this free time, I do not believe I would have been able to stay afloat with balancing everything that was on my plate! It has helped reduce my stress and have an easier senior year. ___________________________________________ Learning Goal #5: I will learn the basic diagnoses and medical terms commonly seen/used in an urgent care (medical) setting in order to improve my memory and understand what the nurses and doctors are discussing. Goal Completion Date: 12/1/2017 Date Completed: 11/26/2017 Evidence of obtaining this goal:
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I have immensely enjoyed working at the Urgent Care over the past couple of months. Below, you will find my final post video discussing my experiences and overall thoughts! Thank you to all who were invested in me and my time at the Urgent Care- you are all very much appreciated! Stay tuned for next semester as I will be experiencing what it's like to be a clinical pharmacist!
![]() Some people may have heard the term Savior Sibling, but what does it really mean? A savior sibling is a child who is born out of the pure use for their body tissues and organs, in order to help save an older sibling with a terminal illness. Over the past couple of generations, the use of savior siblings have become more common and controversial. The process of creation of a savior sibling occurs through a variety of procedures and techniques. The savior siblings become donors of tissues and stem cells, among possible organ donation. Savior siblings are born out of need by (often) desperate parents who want to save an older child- not for the sole reason of loving the unborn child. As treatment options have increased over the past half century in order to treat a variety of diseases, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation has become a standard medical care practice. Recently, when parents and doctors see fit, children will often serve as stem cell donors when a sibling is in need of a transplant. Risks to the donor child after the stem cell collection can include the serious complications including bone, nerve, or tissue damage. Once a person has donated certain medical tissues or organs, hardships may come along further in life. These hardships range from being restricted to a hospital bed to exclusions from childhood events, such as being restricted to what sports they can play, due to the risk of complications. A child should never be born out of anything but love for who they are, not what they have to offer. By putting the unborn child’s life into danger between the performance of multiple procedures and donations, the savior sibling is no longer being treated like a human being- just a source for tissues and parts. The possible miracle of an older child living a couple more years does not outweigh the harm that can come to an infant for using him or her for only their tissues and parts, when the main intention is not to love them fully for who they are on the inside. Read more about Savior Siblings in my literature review research paper here. ![]() The healthcare field has evolved immensely with social media over the past couple of years. They not only use social media to share stories of those who undergo treatment and miracle happenings but also share a variety of common illnesses with the community. From what foods can cause heart burn to seasonal allergies, it helps to not only inform the public about common issues but also keep them aware of their health. Nationwide Children’s Hospital does all of these things, as they also use social media to share stories of those who are going through diseases, inform the public about local health issues, and post inspirational quotes. Their most common social media platforms are through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Personally, I think that using social media for professional use is a great way to not only promote business but to also reach the community on a platform scale. Pros of using social media professionally include reaching the largest number of people possible, as the connection possibilities are endless. Branding is also more specified as a target audience can be reached directly, with the help of pictures and visuals give the audience the option to like and comment. Cons to using social media professionally include the main fact that maintaining social media accounts take an abundance of time and energy. While advertising is common, this also takes money and can prove to be ineffective if it does not reach the targeted audience. As a young professional, I ultimately view social media as a valuable resource to make new connections and stay up to date in my desired career field. Professionals use it to reach out to audiences and connect them with new disease cures and ways to improve one’s health. Personally, I think this is a great way to stay informed and I learn new things about the health field every day on Twitter through my my Twitter account. However, from a personal standpoint and professional ways aside, I think social media has more cons than pros. Although social media is a great way to stay connected with people, as it often brings stress and anxiety to be perfect. This is experienced by many teenagers, as pictures on social media are often edited and photoshopped. As a high school student, if I could make social media nonexistent, I most likely would. Social media these days causes people to strive to be this “perfect image” and meet societal expectations. It causes stress, anxiety, and can negatively affect a person mentally and emotionally. On another note, this week at the Urgent Care I learned about foreign bodies in the ear and appendicitis. So far I have seen a popcorn kernel and a stylus tip stuck in the ear canal! In order to get these objects out, the patient is usually placed on their back and a type of grabbing tool is used to retrieve the stuck object. Objects can cause some pain depending on how deep they are in the ear canal, and often cause the patient to have trouble hearing out of the specified ear. Appendicitis is when the appendix becomes inflamed and fills with pus, causing extreme pain. The pain starts at the center of the stomach near the belly button and moves toward the right side of the stomach. Symptoms include nausea, chills, fever, poor appetite, and vomiting. If not treated, the appendix can rupture and cause a systemic infection. ![]() Goals. They are things we here about everyday and perhaps set everyday (I know I do!). Why is it important to set goals? It is extremely important to set goals because if you have no goals set how are you suppose to accomplish anything? Goals help us, as the distracted humans we are, to stay on track and keep the end in mind. I do not believe I would be able to function without goals in my life! As silly as it may sound, I set goals for everything. Whether it be the homework I wish to accomplish, chores that need to be done, or what grade I wish to have in a class, I like to write down my goals and cross them off when they are completed. If someone is struggling with goal setting, my best advice is to take it one step at a time. What do you wish to accomplish today? Perhaps, what do you wish to accomplish in the future? Personally, nothing feels better than accomplishing goals! One goal that I worked very hard to accomplish was trying out to become a drum major for my marching band. The practices and tryouts were lengthy and a lot of time and effort was put in. We had 2 practices every week, starting 2 months ahead of audition day. I would work on memorizing patterns to the music everywhere, whether it be during lunch, walking around my house, or in the grocery store. The audition has many parts to it. We had to conduct the 1st part of our previous show around 4 times, conduct to 3-4 songs with different patterns in various time signatures, conduct our own patterns we wrote to an audio recording that was given to us (....that’s it!) in front of everyone, create our own salute, complete a time keeping exercise, and last but not least, clap what we think a random tempo was. The entire audition lasted over 2 hours and was super nerve racking! To make it even more nerve racking, we had to wait until the next day to find out who made it! Only 4 drum majors were needed and I was one of the people chosen out of many. Hearing my band director say my name when announcing who the drum majors were is definitely one of the proudest moments of my life! Now at the Urgent Care, one of my current learning goals is to learn basic diagnosis’ often seen in the urgent care (you can view my learning targets for this semester by clicking on the box to the right!). I feel I have been working hard to accomplish this goal and have made definite progress. One of the harder parts of this learning goal is that in the medical community, there are endless amounts of different illnesses and forms of diseases that can show up. Therefore, it is hard to know many diagnosis due to the fact that I do not have the appropriate schooling. I have tried my hardest to learn common diagnosis’ at the urgent care by taking many notes and having my mentor print out information on various cases we have seen. This past Sunday, I correctly diagnosed 3 cases on my own (of course with the validation from my mentor). During my shift, we had three cases I have seen previously which are Nursemaid’s Elbow, Croupe, and a Supracondylar Humerus Fracture (refer to previous posts for more information). I was so happy to be able to see how much I have learned and how I was able to put it to use! One interesting case I saw on my shift was a form of an extreme rash, called Eczema Coxsackium. Eczema Coxsackium is a rash that consist of Eczema that has become extremely inflamed and infected by the Hand, Foot, Mouth disease. It can occur all over the body and is very painful. I just feel so bad when a poor infant has it! Until next week! ![]() In class we have begun to talk about digital presence and how it can affect and be used in the career field. When I look up my mentor’s name online, I get a lot of pages that are involved with the medical community such as Nationwide Children's, healthgrades.com, and health.usnews.com He also has a LinkedIn profile and what appears to be an inactive professional Facebook page. Everything shown on Google looks very professional and is all related to him as a doctor. I do know that he has personal social media pages, however these accounts are private and do not show up on Google. Social media policies in the pediatric field, especially at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, is very strict. I know they even have people hired who their sole job is to research employees social media pages using keywords since there are so many people who work for Nationwide Children's. Rules include not sharing patient information (obviously), but also not complaining about situations and not sharing ideas, inventions, or trade secrets. They can also not share any pictures of people and patients without written consent. If I had to give advice to a young person just getting started with the social media world, I would tell them to really think before hitting the “send” button. We all know to think before we post, but it really is all out there once we submit it to the web. Make sure that when you post, it is something that is positive and is not going to negatively affect someone. I have started on working on some of my goals. I now know I definitely want to work with children in a medical setting when I am older. I have also started working on interacting with people in the different jobs more and feel I am able to make the parents and patient feel comfortable when I am in the room. I feel very comfortable when I am in a patient’s room and my mentor has started to allow me to interact more with the patients on my own. This has included allowing me to walk patients back to their room after triage and checking up on them, checking their current health status and reporting back to my mentor. Although these may seem like small things, I feel that they are great progress in trust from my mentor and allow the parents and patients to trust me as well. ![]() Welcome back! I have been mentoring for around 3-4 weeks now and have heavily enjoyed it. The Urgent Care has been a great environment for me to work in and I am so grateful for all the staff there who have welcomed me with open arms. I remember on my very first shift how nervous I was to start, not knowing what to expect. I now go in today and am welcomed by the staff, automatically knowing where to put my stuff, and I feel that it is a place where I feel I belong. I am also now starting to be able to correctly (and mentally) diagnose some common illnesses I have been seeing, which is exciting! I feel that one change I could make to how I am approaching mentoring is by trying to involve myself more in the different career positions, not just focusing on the physician’s point of view. I need to be more of an advocate for myself and put myself out there more to the staff. Although I feel I have already started doing this recently, I think I can still expand my boundaries. I also feel much more comfortable now asking questions and offering to do various tasks for any staff that needs it. The Urgent Care has been a great learning environment for me and I cannot wait to see what I learn over the next couple of weeks! ![]() I had a great shift today! Even though the people on shift get changed often, I am beginning to recognize faces and they are all very welcoming. The staff makes me feel like I am one of them and I appreciate that a lot. There are a lot of rules and regulations in the Urgent Care, but there are also some basic common ones. These include “washing in” and “washing out”, meaning using the foam hand sanitizer every time you walk into and out of a room. There are fam hand sanitizer bottles outside and inside every room, making it easy for the doctors and nurses. Most doctors and nurses also wear a mask when they enter a room to protect themselves from bacteria and contagious diseases like the flu. The staff also asks me often if I have questions and I feel free to ask them when I have them. There is somewhat structure when it comes to being in charge, with the doctors “on top” and the RN nurses on “the bottom”. However, everyone at the Urgent Care seems to get along and all respect each other on an equal level. Oh boy did I love seeing x-rays today! My mentor showed me an x-ray of a patient she was doing a post work-up on. This patient had a diaphragmatic hernia, which is when one of your abdominal organs goes through a defect opening in your diaphragm, causing the organs to travel up near your lungs and heart, constricting and pushing on them. This usually happens due to a birth defect that causes the opening in your diaphragm, causing symptoms like difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate, and sometimes blue discoloration in the skin. ![]() Another x-ray I got to see today was a supracondylar fracture! A supracondylar fracture is an elbow fracture, which occurs when the distal humerus is broken-fractured right above the elbow joint. There are two types of supracondylar fractures, non angulated (Type 1) and angulated (Type 2 and 3). A supracondylar non angulated fracture, also known as Type 1, is when the fracture is less than 20 degrees and the patient can see orthopedic doctor within 5-7 days. A supracondylar angulated fracture, also known as Type 2 and 3, is when the fracture is more than 20 degrees and requires the patient to immediately see an orthopedic doctor. The difference between Type 2 and 3 is Type 3 fractures are the worst type, usually requiring surgery in order to have pins put in to help the bone heal correctly. I learned so much and cannot wait to see what next week holds for me! ![]() While thinking about my mentorship placement, I have started to think of some goals and expectations of myself while interning over the next couple of weeks in the Urgent Care. My main reason for choosing the Urgent Care is that I feel that I can get a sense for working in the medical field with children, dipping my toes in the water as one might say. During this journey, I hope to gain patient-care experience and to feel more comfortable around patients and their parents. I would like to get a solid foundation of medical terms and common illnesses, and how to treat these illnesses. I feel that I have good communication skills but would like to push myself to further improve these skills and feel comfortable fully talking to the patients. Hopefully I will be able to achieve these goals! These week at the Urgent Care I worked with a new mentor, who was a nurse practitioner. I saw a few new medical cases, but mostly learned about the relationship between the doctor/fellow and patient, along side how to diagnosis the patient. One new medical case I saw was called Nursemaid’s elbow, which occurs when the radial head is dislocated in the arm. It is usually seen with children (the child will not move their arm afterwards), and commonly happens due to parents swinging their child or pulling them by the arm. The simple fix to Nursemaid’s elbow is by twisting the arm or wrist back quickly, easily popping the radial head back into place. I also learned how important it is to have trust between a patient and their doctor/fellow, especially with kids. Kids tend to be clingy and hesitant to let people examine them, resulting in kicking or crying. Doctors/fellows gain trust by using their parents as a gateway, whether this be having the parent try the tongue depressor first or comfort their child. Another medical case that came in involved a rash and the cause was unknown. My mentor mentioned that after she had not gained new clues as to what caused the rash after her examination and questions, she focused on what she could rule out. She was able to rule out an allergic reaction or something more serious, therefore being able to prescribe some basic medications to help the rash go away. She emphasized that medicine is sometimes more of what can be ruled out than diagnosing what it may be. Overall I had a great shift and cannot wait to go back next week! ![]() I have officially completed my first shift at the Urgent Care! At the Urgent Care, time is managed depending on the number of patients being attended to and the amount waiting in the lobby. There are not specific deadlines, however, the goal is to get the patient taken care of and discharged as fast as possible with the best care possible. The typical waiting time is around 1 hour- 1 ½ hours from waiting in the waiting room to being discharged. There is not really “flextime”, as there are usually always patients who need to be taken care of. When waiting on nurses to take initial reports on the patient, the time is spent filling out the patient’s medical chart and initial examination. While it is rare to have downtime, when available it is used to catch up on email and read new reports on different studies taking place. I use my free time now catching up on college duties and homework. I love being able to have time throughout the day to get my things done and then go and observe on the later shifts! When I go home during my free time I find myself often getting distracted so I feel that I am good managing my time as long as I am still at school during my free time. ![]() I can officially diagnose croup when I see and hear about the symptoms from the patient! Croup is an upper airway infection that restricts the trachea and commonly causes a "barking" cough.When shadowing during my first shift, we saw several cases of croup and also a couple broken arms/hands, bad eczema, and an abscess that needed drained. My mentor also explained x-rays to me and I learned how the different medical charts are to be read and filled out. The people there were all so nice and I loved being around the kids! I even got to make a couple popsicle runs for the ones who were not too happy :). |
What am I doing 1st Semester?I am shadowing a doctor who works at an off-campus Urgent Care. Here, I hope to gain patient-care experience and see what it is like to work with children!
Who is at the top of this page?This is Beau. Beau was a twin born at 26 weeks with a complex heart disease, requiring multiple surgeries and continuous interventions. Although Beau is required to have an oxygen tank and medications running through him 24/7 in support of his heart and lungs, he has not let these obstacles stop him from living a normal 3 year old life. From being able to attend school to playing in the pool, Beau has always put his dreams forward and has not let his disease stop him. This blog page is made in dedication to him. As I mentor, I will be thinking of Beau and kids just like him who would not be able to be where they are today without an innovative hospital. It is kids like Beau that inspire me to work in the medical field, as I one day aspire to be able to help even just one of them.
*Permission was given by Beau's parents to share his story and photos |