Nurse Camp

Today's guest blogger is Suzanna:

"Today I got to go to Nurse Camp. It was held at Dickinson State University, so it was very close and convenient. We got there to register at about 8:40 A.M. When we registered, we got a bag that contained a T-shirt and an actual working stethoscope! The real program was supposed to start at 9:00 A.M., but they had so many people registering that they didn't start until about 9:15 A.M.

They played a movie for us starring people telling about their experiences with nurses. Then we got divided into about seven groups, and we each went to different stations. My first station: OB (obstetrics). We learned how to measure a baby, wrap up a baby, and change a baby's diaper. Then we went to another room where we learned how to put in staples and take out staples from a person's arm, head, etc. We also learned how a nurse would wash his/her hands so as to be clean before a patient's arrival.

In our next room we learned how to clean off a wound, listen to a patient's heartbeat, get our blood pressure and blood oxygen level taken, and check our reflexes on our knees. We also took a flashlight and shone it into each other's eyes to make sure that our brains were working correctly. You see, if one's pupil expands when the light hits it, his/her brain is not functioning correctly. If a flashlight is shining in one's eye, one's pupil would get smaller so as to take in less light; but if it were dark, one's pupil would get bigger so as to take in more light.

Next we went to a classroom set up like an emergency room where we learned how to give CPR. Then we performed it on a little dummy. Our next class was about our skeletal system. We learned that, if one's bones were completely solid, one would sink when one got into water. Our bones have this webbing inside of them so that the blood can flow easily. Yes, there is blood inside our bones. Then we learned what sort of devices would help keep a bone in place if it were sprained, broken, or fractured. We also learned different types of things that nurses use to help get people walking again after they have had a cast on their leg for a very, very long time.

After that we did operating room. We got all dressed up like a nurse who would be in an operating room helping a doctor, and we learned how they wash their hands: by scrubbing all the way up to their elbows and then rinsing off with tons of water on their hands and then holding them upwards, as though saying 'touchdown.' Then the nurse helps them get all their equipment on while their hands are still up in that formation. They don't put their hands down because if they were to brush up against something else, they'd have to start all over again. That would take a long time.

The next station we went to was one where we had to take care of a dummy that they had named Mr. Hideman. We had to check his heartbeat. There was a woman sitting behind a computer, and she gave him all these little problems that we had to fix. We had to give him medicine through his IV, and we had to listen to his bowel movements. Then we moved on to the next station. We learned how nurses in nursing homes are not allowed to touch their patients' medicine, so they just pop it out of these little containers and hand it to their patients because if the patients touch their own medication, that's just fine. We also learned that some patients can't swallow their own food, so they have to have a tube going right into their stomach so they still can get all of the food that they need. So the nurses sometimes have to crush medicine, so we put Smarties into a little bag and crushed them as though we were crushing real medicine. Then we got to eat it.

Then we moved on. Some nurses aren't strong enough to pick up a patient from a bed, and some patients are too weak to climb out of the bed by themselves, so they would lie on a chair-like thing that is flat across the bed, and a nurse would put chains into it and pump the machine up, and it would be lifted up off the bed and onto the floor or into their chair or next to their cane or wherever they needed to go. Then we went into our last room for the day where we got to play Nurse Jeopardy, testing all of the things we had learned today. We were divided into two teams: two girls on one team and three girls on the other team. I was on the team with three girls, and our name was Oreos. The other team's name was Eagles, and the Oreos won. We got a sucker, a poster, a magazine, and an evaluation form.

Then we went downstairs and, considering that nurses are very, very healthy, we had a very healthy snack of popcorn and juice boxes. Then we went out and toured an ambulance. They had to bring a smaller ambulance because all the big-box ambulances were out on actual calls for help. That was my morning. It was very hectic and very, very fun."