So after a bit of a break in my posting due to a technical issues (was locked out of my Blog) I found a college kid (Sam Faulkner you rock!!) who is helping me with a new business website and got me back into Nurseology. This makes me immensely happy, all I have to do is feed him (college kids love to eat) pay him a small hourly fee and he fixes all my IT issues. Money well spent and he is available for hire locally or remotely so if you have a need, message me and I will give you his details.
Anywhoo, back to the plot. Wow I have a whole year-to-date to talk about. Where to start? So I took a hiatus from Visiting Nursing this year as I have so many other projects on the go. I miss the hands on clinical experience, I miss the one on one patient contact and the relationships that I made in the field. I do not miss being a slave to the schedule, traffic jams, showing up at someones house when you have just told them (10 minutes ago) you are on your way and they have either gone out or will not let you in. I do not miss being yelled at by family members because I cannot fix their loved one who is in the stage of end-of-life. I do not miss working with a dysfunctional team (lets face it most teams are). I love love love working from home, being my own boss and setting my own schedule. My stress levels went from the height of the Empire State Building to ground level.....that is priceless. So this may not be a forever break from Community Nursing but it is for now.
I continue to teach face-to-face and online. I taught two clinical sessions for the Philadelphia University I am employed by at a busy city children's hospital. I had two awesome groups of students, I loved them all. I have a formula I have developed the past couple of years that seems to work so I build on it. First of all I think it helps that I really enjoy young adults, but I try to get to know them as people first, develop them as people as well as nurses. That way I can see their strengths and what we have to work on. Also, there is much published evidence out there that shows if a student believes the instructor cares about them they perform much better. Think about the teacher in school you did best for, part of it may have been because you liked that teacher and thought they liked you. We had our fare share of renal patients, lots of bronchiolitis, babies with GI issues etc. The basics are great to teach, highlight how to work with the nursing process, document and most importantly build a relationship with the child and the family. All my students passed their clinical and I hope it was a good experience for them
Online teaching continues. For some mad reason I agreed to teach for yet another online school. This was not a good idea as they were not organized, their communication was awful and their students poorly prepared. It was the longest 8 weeks of my life but we got through it. I quickly ditched them and told them I was not available to teach for another class. However I continue with my original school (in Texas of all places) teaching community health, nurse leadership and care of the elderly and love it. Was able to keep up all my grading and discussion on a recent trip to Rome.....aahhh the beauty of working online!
So welcome back to my blog, now I am in look for weekly updates. I missed you guys and I really missed blogging. Got lots of ideas to rave about for the summer.
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