grumblegrumble

It started happening this quarter. The comparisons between nurse training and military training. First, it was my Skills instructor. Trained in the army she runs the class like a drill sargeant: "Draw that medication faster! Hey, checking back after giving a medication is what makes you different from the janitor, maggot!" (ok, no one was actually called a maggot, but you could almost hear it in the tone of her voice). I muttered to my neighbor, at one point, "You're in the army now." Rumor has it we're not allowed to wear sweatshirts to class. Suddenly A students are getting less than A's on the skills. And, um, yep, that's me. I couldn't draw up the medication from the teeny, tiny ampule using the gigantic syringe and I touched the edge of the needle with my glove and that = didn't pass the skill.

The other military comparisons keep springing up in the dreaded History of Nursing Class (oh, come on: History of Nursing!?). The caps and uniforms, the civil war nurses, the discipline, etc. Is it summer yet?

The thing that I have been enjoying is the clinicals. My last two patients have been so grateful to me for the little help I provide them. I don't know how much of it had to do with the heavy amounts of morphine they were on (both had itsy-bitsy pupils and morphine pumps. One kept the little button in his hand at all times.) and how much of it had to do with the lavish amounts of attention I'm able to focus on them as my sole patient for the day. I'm able to wash their hair and rub their backs and chat while most of the RNs are flying in to give medications and ask for vitals and then whirling out.

OK. Recipes. Have I mentioned the banana cream pie from the NY Times magazine a couple of months back? It was the most delicious pie I've ever made and I don't even like banana cream pie. I'll get back to you on it.