Macy Arn

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*** Could not take my own pictures due to high security and strict phone policy due to the case that was in our A-Pod 

 

Notes from Shadowing: 

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I Job Shadowed an ER Nurse at Riley Hospital on Saturday February 8th from 3-7pm.  Unfortunately, a young patient passed away right when I got there so there was a strict no phone rule put in place and I was not allowed to take any pictures during the shift because of it. When I first entered the hospital I had to go through a security check just like each patient does, then I got to go back to the Epi Junior Room where nurses have shift meetings and debriefs about big cases.  Then we took a tour around the ER, there are 4 pods, A - D. I was in Pod A where children with a variety of children come in for more sever cases come. We had a 7 month boy who came in with cardiac arrest and passed, an asthma related illness, a leukemia patient with a fever, a pink eye, and a burn skin graph patient. Other pods were used for psych patients, overflow, and wait room for patients waiting on test results. I had conversations with a few nurses asking them where they studied and why they choose nursing. The person whom I was shadowing, Amanda Wihelms, studied at IU Bloomington and then began working at Riley once a week as a ER Tech, Jenna, in nursing school to gain experience, then landed herself a full time nursing position immediately after college. I also met a ER Tech that is currently in the IUPUI Nursing Program and she gave me some tips in where to gain experience, class tips for my current courses, and explained a little about nursing school time management with her full time job. This was extremely helpful to me because I had many of my questions answered about how hard it is to go through nursing school with having a full time job and what her schedule looks like, etc. 

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I do think this experience was different than I expected because I thought an ER nurse was always doing something and is always with a patient. I thought I would see nurses and everyone running into a room and everything looking more busy than it was. Majority of my shadowing experience was spent sitting at a desk looking at the computers with the patients vitals and conditions. The approximate median stay for the shift was an hour and half, significantly lower than most days with a median of 4-7 hours. 

Due to the conditions, I was unable to take pictures and videos due to the cops and conditions of our pod during the hours I was there. However, I have found pictures on the internet of what the rooms look like,  outside of the hospital (had to be escorted in the hospital from where I was dropped off due to the cops and everything that was happening), and what the wait room/hallways look like. 

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How did it start warm up: On Sunday morning I was waking up to come back to Indianapolis after a long conference swim meet at Oakland in Rochester, Michigan. We went down to breakfast, put our stuff on the bus and noticed none of the divers were on the bus by the time we were supposed to leave. So, we had to wait longer, figure out why they weren’t up and wait even longer for them to get onto the bus. We sat on the bus for 6 hours total with one stopping to eat and playing lots of games.

Maybe Introduction paragraph:

Patient A about 7 months old came in ambulance straight to Riley Hospital’s ER department. He was a very young African American boy who was in cardiac arrest for an unknown period. The 7-month year old was napping with his older brother and mother at home while his grandmother was cleaning the house. However, when the grandmother went to check on all of them sleeping, she noticed that the youngest’s chest was not rising and falling. She began to freak out, called 911 and began CPR on her grandson. The action did not stop her, EMS arrived took the child and then cops lead the family behind the ambulance to a hospital. Except the problem is they lead them to the wrong hospital.

3 points

• Watching the family come in to say goodbyes

• The body bag leaving the hospital

• The nurse that did not do the technique correctly

3 settings – A pod

• Drug/Medication unit

  • A computer that took your fingerprint and only opened the drawer of medicine needed

• Nursing debrief room

  • A board full of openings, how to cope and various other signs

• Actual patient’s room

  • The translator device

Transition - walked or quickly got to the next setting (room to room), the next hour, the next patient. Different type of patient rooms (psych, vented, non-vented)

Trouble – the boy that died from cardiac arrest, the nurse that messed up on the procedure taking out the leukemia port (forgot to put in the medication before removing the needle placed to inject medicine into the port)