Hi there,
Well the time has finally came. I am a Stenberg graduate. I am so beyond happy right now. It is such a relief to be done, but at the same time so scary. Now the pressure is on to start paying off the student loan and find a job! Luckily I planned ahead and have been applying since November. Today I was actually contacted for an interview so I am very excited to be doing that. Normally I would be so nervous about stuff like this, but I feel like my preceptor from Ridge Meadows Hospital did such a fantastic job of preparing me that I can tackle it! In my last week I also took the opportunity to go up to a medical floor since I hadn’t experienced anything like that. I really wanted to get a specialized unit (Psychiatry) and I am so happy I did, but I also felt like I needed the experience of a surgical/medical unit so I am really happy that I did that. They do twelve hour shifts so that was also something I wanted to try to see if I could handle. I actually think I prefer the longer shifts. I am not sure if it was just because I was so busy or if it was just being there longer, but the time flew by. Plus working there it would be more beneficial to have the longer hours and bank more.
From the minute I walked on to the medical unit at Ridge Meadows we were processing orders. I started at 7 am and didn’t get a break until 4. I am serious. I didn’t even notice the time until the words started to jumble together and I though – holy I need food, NOW! It is a lot different from being in Psych because our patients all have their own psychiatrist who sees them and deals with them and then our Hospitalist only sees a few patients if they have issues that are outside of the psychiatrists scope (medical issues) so only one Hospitalist visits the unit a day because out of 23 patients, only 4 or 5 really need to be seen. But on the medical unit there seven or eight hospitalists that visit because they all have medical issues and rarely do family doctors visit inpatients. So for that reason the orders kepy coming consistently because they would all visit at different times, rather than in Psych when I get all my orders at once. Also there are quite a bit more beds so that means there are a lot more patients. Our hospital also seems to always be at OCP so there is a lot of pressure to transfer patients out to different facilities or home.
I am so excited for what comes next and it has been such a fantastic journey. I am so happy to have no more tests or visits from the school and to just focus on being hired and finally getting paid!
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