RT Student Blog

I usually don't come here after a really long day but today was different. So many of my readers have spent time in NICU's I thought I would check in. First off I must tell you that this unit was huge. It has about 40 rooms.

The day started slow. We had no patients on ventilators and only 2 on nasal CPAP. We went and did the CPAP settings check and entered our stuff in the computer. It was pretty slow. Most of the kids were on a Nasal Cannula so it was no big deal. We had a patient going to the OR to get a bowel resection. Not real sure what that is but me and one of the RT's went to the OR hoping to see something cool. With such a tiny baby the doc, surgical tech, nurse anaeshetist, and anesthesiologist were crowded around so I couldn't see anything. We were there about an hour and a half.

When we returned to the unit the nurse told us that the other RT had gone to a delivery. Twins at 28 weeks. It was about to get exciting. They came in and as is usually the norm the first twin (twin A) was in better shape than twin B. We had ventilators on stand by and a nasal CPAP in each room. I think they weighed about 1200 grams each. We got twin A settled first and focused on B. It (I hate referring to the babies as "it" but I don't want to give away any more personal information because of HIPAA) was grunting and had very noticeable retractions. The baby was in respiratory distress. We got it on a CPAP but the grunting was still present. They decided to give the baby surfactant. That is where you push this liquid straight into the baby's lungs. It helps decrease the surface tension of the alveoli in the lungs so they will not collapse when the baby exhales. The RT intubated the baby and instilled the surfactant. It was an amazing experience to see that.

The rest of the day was relatively quiet. We just basically kept an eye on the babies from then on out. I was a little nervous at first because the babies are so tiny. I had never seen anything like it. You definitely get a satisfied feeling when the babies condition improves. I think this might be somewhere I'd like to work. I still have 3 more clinical days so that opinion could change. I'll definitely tell you more about it.

One of the harder things about the clinicals is the paperwork we have to do each day.
We have to find a patient who's on a ventilator and do a bunch of paperwork on them.
It's actually only 2 papers, front and back. I thought I'd share them with you here.

This is the front page where we do the vent check, get an ABG, Chest X-ray, lab work, and patient assessment.


This is the back page. We have to calculate ideal body weight, anion gap, and a bunch of other formulas. You can see that in the above image.


And here is why the formulas are hard. Because we have to not use calculators and we have to show our math. It's crazy but definitely helpful.

I start back to school tomorrow and for my senior year I bought a new bag. I had been thinking of finding something different than my 8 year old (though still totally cool) laptop bag. I searched and searched different stores and even bought a bag on ebags.com that turned out to be way too small. Finally searching around on eBay (obviously) I found it. It was advertised as the Jack Bauer Messenger bag and was just a simple, olive colored messenger bag. I even have posted a picture of it in action from the show "24". I am a huge fan of the show so this bag is totally a great bag for me. Well, it arrived Saturday and I just love it. All the books (3) and notebooks (2) that I need for this semester totally fill it up. Hopefully I can get rid of a few of them. I even stuck some of my (liberal themed) buttons on it. I'll take a picture of it soon for you.

Well, today is the day that I am going to pay my tuition. I am taking 15 credit hours this semester so it's going to cost me $675.00. That is the most I have ever spent on one semester and frankly I'm a little saddened by it. I have withdrawn the cash and I'm going to pay it today. I am going to school on the G.I. Bill/Army College Fund and the way that works is you pay out of pocket and they send you a monthly check. The payment is due by Monday and the monthly check will come in about Thursday. It's ok though because I've gotten used to it. I just wanted to vent about the high tuition. Then there's the books which should come out to about $120. Luckily I only have to buy 2 and have the luxury of the internet to shop for them (amazon) and don't have to pay the bookstore prices.