journal - 31 Job shadowing

I job shadowed at Memorial Health System on the 3G surgical/medical floor.  Let me tell you, I had no idea that I was going to experience all of the things that I experienced while I was job shadowing.  I shadowed an RN named Robbin, and also spent time with her LPN, LaDonna.  Robbin and LaDonna were in charge of seven rooms on their floor, and Robbin had three rooms that she was in charge of herself.  Robbin was working a shift from seven in the morning to seven in the evening, and she worked three shifts a week.  I, however, shadowed her only from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon, plus, I took a lunch break.  The entire time that I shadowed, Robin and I were running around from room to room on her floor. Robin had to take requests from the patients, check how they were doing, fill their medicine, and do so many other things.  They had to do EVERYTHING for the patients.  It was like Robbin was a mom for all seven of her patients.  During that day I saw a lot of things..... When the job shadowing form said that the shadower might come in contact with blood, bodily fluids, and nudity, they definitely were not kidding.  I saw and/or came into contact with all of those things.  I was extremely surprised that I got to witness all of those things.  It seemed that because I was job shadowing, I had like an all access pass to witness anything in the hospital.  I even got to go into the radiology room and look at x-rays that the patients were not even allowed to see yet.  It was a very neat day.  I think that nursing might be a good fit for me.  I can handle any of the things that some people may think are nasty, and thankfully I have had a lot of experience with those thing because of all of the babysitting that I have done.  I also think that I have the mental capacity to keep track of all of the patients and remember who I am supposed to help with what, and so forth.  There are, however, a few things that concern me about the nursing career.  Firstly, there is some math and chemistry abilities that is required for the job.  For example, whenever Robbin was filling a drug for someone's IV, she had to use chemistry and math.  The drugs came in 2 mL containers, and from that she had to extract only .2 mL, and then dilute it with saline solution for four times the amount of drug that she withdrew.  That is the only thing that majorly concerns me, but when you do it all the time, I'm sure you get used to it.  Also, I think I would get bored and run down with nursing, but maybe  I can do it for a few years and then open a clinic in another country, or an orphanage or do something exciting like that.

"If we Must Die" Modernism

If We Must Die

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!  
-Claude McKay 

 Werlock, Abby H. P. "modernism." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CASS589&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 4, 2012).