HLT54115 Diploma Of Nursing
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Introduction
Describing the typical day for an enrolled nurse can be quite challenging. This is because every moment for a nurse is always exhausting, energizing or even momentous. On a single day, nurses can attend to people who are at their weakest point or very vulnerable. They also see people who are very strong and resolute and they often witness results of life ending injuries as well as infections .It is also difficult to describe the typical day of a nurse since workplaces are also different and work might also differ one shift to the other depending on the nature of patients that the nurse is supposed to see .In the following sections however ,there is a wider outline of how a normal workday would be like for a nurse on a recommended 12 hour shift at the hospital.
A nurse normally wakes up by 5 AM even before the sun is up. By this time, nurses should be up ,taken a shower, eating breakfast prior to other professionals even hitting the snooze button ready for the tedious schedule ahead of them at the hospital. By 7.00 AM, the nurse should already be at the hospital. The nurse then will have a conversation with the staff who has been on the night shift and they will review the records of the patients together to get an estimate of the number of the patients he or she will be dealing with and the conditions they are suffering from and if there is any interventions that have been initiated (Legrain, Bouarab, & Lahrichi, 2014). At this time, the nurse also begins to coordinate with different specialists like doctors and checking any emails.
As time goes by, the nurse begins to see different patients and helping them out. The nurse also ensures to record all the vitals from the numerous patients he attends to. In most hospitals, the nurse will have a computer that will assist him to generate charts of the patient data .The nurse works hand in hand with doctors to administer drugs to the patients. At the hospital, emergencies arise throughout the day. This prevents or interrupts the nurse from the less critical appointments and testing since he has to attend to emergencies promptly.
During mid-day, the nurse is set to have a lunchbreak. This is however never a guarantee since if there would any emergency, the nurse will have to forego the lunch and attend to the emergency. After the emergency subsides, the nurse can go back and eat his lunch very quickly with uncertainty of another potential emergency. A typical day for a nurse can be very strenuous and no nurse will ever tell you that two days can be the same.
As time goes by and afternoon begins creeping in, many patients troll the hospital and the nurse has to see them .In some extreme cases, some ignorant and patients who do not speak the same language will be brought in and the nurse would need the help of a translator to facilitate communication between the two .If the nurse is lucky enough to get time between emergencies ,appointments and different diagnostic testing, he can go back to the office and check on emails that might be sent by the doctors or from other departments such as blood transfusion.
It is in the afternoon that the nurse continue seeing different patients as well as checking on the ICU and HDU procedures by reviewing different charts and collecting important data. It is the duty of the nurse to collect and record data in regards to surgery. While doing this, the nurse is supposed to continue with checking and responding to the emails then reviewing the schedule of the next day. By the end of the day, the nurse is much depleted of energy after a tight or busy day though he is filled with the sense of contentment especially making a change in the life of a patient. The nurse has to wait for the next colleague who is to take over the night shift (Jackson & Carberry, 2014). The nurse should document everything which they will counter check with the counterpart meant for the night shift. When the one who is to take over the night shift arrives, the nurse has to review the proceedings of the day together and update him on the number of patients that he will take over and their prescribed or purposed intervention. The nurse is now free to leave and go home to attend on his personal affairs.
References
Jackson, A., & Carberry, M. (2014). The advance nurse practitioner in critical care: a workload evaluation. Nursing in Critical Care, 20(2), 71-77. doi:10.1111/nicc.12133
Legrain, A., Bouarab, H., & Lahrichi, N. (2014). The Nurse Scheduling Problem in Real-Life. Journal of Medical Systems, 39(1). doi:10.1007/s10916-014-0160-8
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