CMC Union week 3

This week has been a pretty big change from the first two weeks. I've been seeing more patients on my own and writing some of my own notes. I've mostly been educating patients on what to do when taking coumadin, but I've also talked to a few patients about their recent weight loss. I talked to one woman today about carbohydrate counting for her husband. He was in the hospital for blood sugars in the 500s last week, but last night he came in with hypoglycemia. Hopefully the carbohydrate counting will help a little.

I read that a lot of you have had really emotional or graphic experiences. I can't say that I've seen anything too graphic or difficult yet (the dietitians are very protective of me still). Today I was about to go see a patient in critcal care, but then he started yelling out wierd noises, so the dietitian went with me and helped me. I did have my first experiences with code blue though. The first day I was in the critical care unit, code blue (heart/breathing stopped) was called 4 times on a patient, who unfortunately died the fourth time. The CCU (critical care unit) turned into a whirl of activity each time. Luckily I had not yet visited the patient or else this probably would have been much harder on me. It was very difficult to get back to work after it happened though, and knowing what was going on made me start to sweat. Today I was in the CCU for the second time, and a nurse yelled out to bring the crash cart. Somebody else yelled "no he's DNR," and then I got very worried. Luckily he was okay though.

Tomorrow I'm going to a meeting in Charlotte with my preceptor for a discussion on how to help standardize the PES statements in the online charting system at the hospital, so that should be interesting. She's been having me write down the different PES statements that different dietitians are using. See some of you soon!