1LT Promotion Ceremony

No longer a butter bar!

There were 6 of us that were promoted at the same time on 20APR2010. It turns out that all 6 of us all came to Ft. Bragg together after being at OBLC in Ft. Sam Houston. I thought that was cool: to see ourselves grow, hang out, and work together for 18 months as well as see ourselves being promoted together.

It was also neat to see the promotion list come out online. I first saw my name pop up on the Army Times. All the people I went to OBLC with are on that list. Names of people I was with 18 months ago in training were on that list. When I found it I quickly sent out a couple text messages and posted some stuff on my buddies Facebook walls. It's an exciting time for us!

Here are some pics from the ceremony. Click to enlarge.

Our flyer

All 6 of us who were promoted!

1LT Kearney velcroing me.

With my former head nurse CPT Rauh

With LTC Solet-Lindsay. She was our nurse track advisor in OBLC. Now she followed us to Ft. Bragg.

With LTC Henkel, our new Evening Night Supervisor.

My buddy Ryan and I. 1LTs all the way!

"With great wealth comes great responsibility" - Bill Gates

I can't wait to see what exciting things are going to happen!

Next month - Nurses Week

Promotion day!

In a couple of hours I will no longer be a 2LT. That noob status is now going away.

I can't wait!

Photos to come soon.

Is the grass greener on the other side?

This past weekend I got go to up see a buddy of mine from OBLC in Silver Springs, MD. He just got out of the hospital for a minor surgery, but he's ok. Took him out to eat and got to go visit the old hospital that I did my Nurse Summer Training Program (NSTP) for three weeks after LDAC a couple years go: Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

I got to visit my old unit, 45B the MICU/PICU. That unit is now next door and another service has taken over the place I had once interned at. It's been 3 years and I'm amazed how much has changed! Logos, commanders, units changing; it's almost as if it's a totally different place.

It was comforting to see that some things didn't change. I remember the Dunkin Donuts, the dinning facility I used to eat at for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the super long hallways this hospital had. Those were some good memories.

My buddy took me on a night shift tour of the place and I got to see some of my old buddies from OBLC! It was a blast catching up with them. Of course they were surprised and wondered why I came all the way from North Carolina to Maryland and showing up their hospital in the middle of the night. We talked about our plans for our nursing career, the courses we wanted to take, and the million-dollar question everyone wants to know: when are you deploying?

Looking around the facility I found a lot of things that I liked. I kept thinking, hey we could do that at Womack! How much better would it be if we did that? It was neat to see how their floor units run, see their staffing schedules, and learn what difficulties they had. After talking with them, we had a lot in common: communication, staffing, scheduling, etc.

So are things really greener on the other side? It's all about perspective.

Surgical Ward

After a week of being floated after moving from the 4S medical/telemetry floor, I finally had an orientation to my new floor at WAMC: the surgical ward.

I was orientated to days for a week then orientated to nights. I am currently on my night rotation. The patient population that this ward serves is numerous. Here is what services this floor covers:

• OB/GYN
• ENT
• General Surgery
• Urology
• Plastic Surgery
• Family Practice
• Radiology
• Ortho
• Oral surgery
• Opthalmology
• Podiatry
• Internal Medicine
• Vascular

That is a lot of different types of patients! There are also numerous doctors this floor works with. Imagine trying to remember all the doctor's names, which services they belong to, and what their pager numbers are. It was overwhelming at first when I briefed about the floor, but there are pager rosters and lists around the nurses station that help communication flowing. Unlike the medicine/telemetry ward, the surgeons and residents are not available on the floor during the day time. They are in the operating room. This can cause a problem if we need orders

Nursing care wise, I find myself dealing with more hardware than the patho-physiology of the patient. Jackon-pratt drains, wound vac machines, patient controlled analgesia machines, chest tubes, suction canisters; these are just some of the things I learned how to use in the last month. Some of these things I have not touched since nursing school.

Overall the care of these patients less acute than on the medicine/telemetry ward. Most of the patients that I've seen are young healthy fit soldiers who do PT five to six days a week. There is no telemetry on this ward so patients who have cardiac issues are not admitted to this ward. The things that I need to look out for each patient are: vital signs every 4 hours for the first 24 hours, make sure they urinate within four to six hours after coming on to the floor, monitor for drainages and reinforce dressings if necessary, ambulate if possible, use of the incentive spirometer, and

application of the SCD machine if possible.

This will be a great learning experience during this rotation. We'll see what's to come! Making sure I have Narcan in reach...