Another week has started and it is almost weekend already..where does all the time go?
On Monday we all spent the day at Casualty since our teacher was going to come to the hospital in the morning. We showed her around at all the ward we haven been these weeks at Katutura State Hospital. Due to the "guided" tour it was a short day at the hospital. The teacher came with us when we went back to the house and later on the last teacher arrived as well. A relaxing afternoon at home before we went out for dinner at Joe´s Beerhouse, the whole group and the teachers. I ate zebra, tasty!
When we got the check one of the teachers paid for all of us... what a nice gesture of her :-)
Yesterday some of us girls decided to take the day of to have some girl time and do what we girls love: shopping. We went to a brand new mall that have opened a few days earlier. Some of the stores weren´t opened yet and none of the restaurants had opened but that didn´t stop us from what we came there for...shopping. Needless to say but I topped my shopping here, 7 shopping bags in total...and got what I looked for: tanktops, shorts, shirts, scarves, accessories and sunscreen :-) In the evening 7 of us girls went out for dinner at a restaurant called NICE where most of the girls had sushi, but I had kingklip (not sure what fish that is, but it was good)
Today 2 of us went to Operating Theatre in order to see some neurosurgeries. We got to attend 2 operations on a 2 month old baby with hydrocephalus and a 2 year old with a chronic subdural hematoma before heading home. The plan was to lay out in the sun in the afternoon but I fell asleep for almost 3 hours on my bed wearing my bikini...days are going by without me getting done what I had planned...lol
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
and once again I have been absent..but I am back now, to stay...lol
My intention was really to write almost every day while here in Namibia but with a schoolpaper to write on 2000 words and a reflection I got a little busy and "forgot" about the writing.
Since the bedroom (there is 4 of us in the bedroom) is a quiet zone it is hard to have to time to write before the lights go out around 9pm on weekdays since we get up at 6am most days.
But anyway....since the last time I wrote I have been to Swakopmund for a weekend getaway where the guy that watches the house and looks after us took us there for a weekend. We got to stay in his family´s vacationhome. While we were there I got to skydive for the 2nd time and this time I jumped from a higher altitude, 10 000 feet and what a rush it was. It was the first time for all the other students and they all loved it and some of them are saying they wanna do it again when we go to Cape Town in beginning of December. I also got to drive a quadbike in the desert, climbed a sanddune and got to watch pelicans in Walwis bay.
I am more than halfway through my practical training at the hospital and have seen and experienced a lot while being there. We´re mostly well received but sometimes there are languagebarriers when we either don´t understand or hear what nurses are saying or that some patients only speaks Afrikaans.
I have now been 1 week at Casualty, 1 Weeks at Maternity where I got to watch several births and attend C-sections, 2 weeks at Acute Care (48 % burn patient, motor vehicle accident victim, Lupus, epileptic patient, preeclampsia, jaundince, renal failure, subcutaneous emphysema +++) and 1 week at Operation Theatre with removal of hemorrhoids, breast augementations, cysts, laparoscopy, removal of a uterus and more) We also did the overnight shift this weekend for payday where we got to see cases like stabbing, overdose, car accidents, sick babies and more. So from now on we get to choose what wards we wanna spend our remaining weeks at. Both of our teachers are coming this week so they will visit us at the hospital, we will invite to the house and we will go out to dinner with them.
Overall, most of the weekdays go by with a full day at the hospital, laying by the pool, reading for the upcoming exam, a few trip to the city center for cafes or shopping or cooking dinners together. We have also had a few movienights and a share of parties here at the house. It was OktoberFest this weekend that all the other Norwegian students went to but I decided to stay at house all by myself to enjoy some alone time by the pool listening to music on my ipod. Usually I like to have people around but it does get too intense at times always having 10 people or more around you and sharing room with 3 other students....so the few moments when I am alone are very precious.
Since the bedroom (there is 4 of us in the bedroom) is a quiet zone it is hard to have to time to write before the lights go out around 9pm on weekdays since we get up at 6am most days.
But anyway....since the last time I wrote I have been to Swakopmund for a weekend getaway where the guy that watches the house and looks after us took us there for a weekend. We got to stay in his family´s vacationhome. While we were there I got to skydive for the 2nd time and this time I jumped from a higher altitude, 10 000 feet and what a rush it was. It was the first time for all the other students and they all loved it and some of them are saying they wanna do it again when we go to Cape Town in beginning of December. I also got to drive a quadbike in the desert, climbed a sanddune and got to watch pelicans in Walwis bay.
I am more than halfway through my practical training at the hospital and have seen and experienced a lot while being there. We´re mostly well received but sometimes there are languagebarriers when we either don´t understand or hear what nurses are saying or that some patients only speaks Afrikaans.
I have now been 1 week at Casualty, 1 Weeks at Maternity where I got to watch several births and attend C-sections, 2 weeks at Acute Care (48 % burn patient, motor vehicle accident victim, Lupus, epileptic patient, preeclampsia, jaundince, renal failure, subcutaneous emphysema +++) and 1 week at Operation Theatre with removal of hemorrhoids, breast augementations, cysts, laparoscopy, removal of a uterus and more) We also did the overnight shift this weekend for payday where we got to see cases like stabbing, overdose, car accidents, sick babies and more. So from now on we get to choose what wards we wanna spend our remaining weeks at. Both of our teachers are coming this week so they will visit us at the hospital, we will invite to the house and we will go out to dinner with them.
Overall, most of the weekdays go by with a full day at the hospital, laying by the pool, reading for the upcoming exam, a few trip to the city center for cafes or shopping or cooking dinners together. We have also had a few movienights and a share of parties here at the house. It was OktoberFest this weekend that all the other Norwegian students went to but I decided to stay at house all by myself to enjoy some alone time by the pool listening to music on my ipod. Usually I like to have people around but it does get too intense at times always having 10 people or more around you and sharing room with 3 other students....so the few moments when I am alone are very precious.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
more from our week at Casualty..
2 more days at Casualty has passed and each day is very different. Yesterday was pretty quiet and besides taking vitals, observations, urinstix, pregnancytests we got to learn about ECG and got to take it on a patient.
Today we chose to work from 1pm - 7pm and today went by som much faster than yesterday since we had to very good male nurses to follow and that let us take both subcutane and intramuscular injections. We got to watch how they stitch on smaller wounds. I even got to assist on a smaller surgery where a male patient had gotten his upper lips cut and lost a few teeth from an assault when he got bitten by another male. He was bleeding a lot and the doctor had a hard time stopping the bleeding and ending up admitting the patient for observation. A few younger girls came in for injections and dressing of wounds and some loud screaming occured but the girls were calmed down by the staff. It gets easier every day being at the hospital, experiencing a lot and learning every day. I am still feeling a little uneasiness of being a group of 3 students at the same time in the ward, it feels like we are too many observing at once...just hoping that feeling will go away eventually.
Looking forward to tomorrow´s dayshift and hoping to see more interesting cases that I can learn a lot from.
Good night everyone!
Today we chose to work from 1pm - 7pm and today went by som much faster than yesterday since we had to very good male nurses to follow and that let us take both subcutane and intramuscular injections. We got to watch how they stitch on smaller wounds. I even got to assist on a smaller surgery where a male patient had gotten his upper lips cut and lost a few teeth from an assault when he got bitten by another male. He was bleeding a lot and the doctor had a hard time stopping the bleeding and ending up admitting the patient for observation. A few younger girls came in for injections and dressing of wounds and some loud screaming occured but the girls were calmed down by the staff. It gets easier every day being at the hospital, experiencing a lot and learning every day. I am still feeling a little uneasiness of being a group of 3 students at the same time in the ward, it feels like we are too many observing at once...just hoping that feeling will go away eventually.
Looking forward to tomorrow´s dayshift and hoping to see more interesting cases that I can learn a lot from.
Good night everyone!
Monday, September 22, 2014
The real first week in clinical practice: Casualty!
Today once again the cab driver can´t manage to pick us up on time..this time we ordered a cab for 6:30am so we could make it to the hospital before 7 am, but of course the cab didn´t show up before 28 minutes later than arranged. We then left for the hospital 2 mins before 7 am....this is Africa, and we´re always on African time..meaning there is no time to be on time...lol
We kind of got a rude awakeing when we walked into a morning meeting where the staff at Casualty were complaining about the students (The Namibians) that tend to disappers for hours and expect the staff to sign for them being there all day. "Oh shit" I thought, thinking that we will have to prove them wrong about us, the Norwegains. After the meeting was over everybody seems very nice, welcome us and we got a complete tour of Casualty and other "places", like Triage and more...
Then it was time to start...right away we were told to take Vitals of the patients coming in, set up IV, PVK, measure bloodsugar, give injections and get "this and that". It was no time to think, just jump into the action, like if we have been there many times before... It was a little hectic in the beginning since we didn´t know the routines and what to do or not to do, but I tried as best as I could. I got to give my 2nd intramuscular injection ever, but that went well, I think...and hope to get more chances at it while being in Casualty this week. I got to watch a guy getting his head getting stitched from having a epileptic seizure while driving his car, that resulted in him crashing the car. Then we were told that a lot of drivers get seizures while driving their cars but won´t admit that they have problems with seizures. We experienced patients with a big variety of problems like overdose, a girl getting hit by a car for the 2nd time, a little boy was bitten by a dog, fall in a stair, bartholin abcess, hypoglycemic shock, girl fainted twice at school, someone who just tested positiv for HIV, nasogastric tube. and more. We got to assist and observe...overall an interesting day with a lot of situations I learned a lot from. We even got a lot of positive fedback from one of the nurses when were done for the dayI´m looking forward to a lot more to learn the rest of the week there.
At the house we made tacos for one of the other student´s birthday.. we celebrated her birthday, with partyhats and cake:-)
We kind of got a rude awakeing when we walked into a morning meeting where the staff at Casualty were complaining about the students (The Namibians) that tend to disappers for hours and expect the staff to sign for them being there all day. "Oh shit" I thought, thinking that we will have to prove them wrong about us, the Norwegains. After the meeting was over everybody seems very nice, welcome us and we got a complete tour of Casualty and other "places", like Triage and more...
Then it was time to start...right away we were told to take Vitals of the patients coming in, set up IV, PVK, measure bloodsugar, give injections and get "this and that". It was no time to think, just jump into the action, like if we have been there many times before... It was a little hectic in the beginning since we didn´t know the routines and what to do or not to do, but I tried as best as I could. I got to give my 2nd intramuscular injection ever, but that went well, I think...and hope to get more chances at it while being in Casualty this week. I got to watch a guy getting his head getting stitched from having a epileptic seizure while driving his car, that resulted in him crashing the car. Then we were told that a lot of drivers get seizures while driving their cars but won´t admit that they have problems with seizures. We experienced patients with a big variety of problems like overdose, a girl getting hit by a car for the 2nd time, a little boy was bitten by a dog, fall in a stair, bartholin abcess, hypoglycemic shock, girl fainted twice at school, someone who just tested positiv for HIV, nasogastric tube. and more. We got to assist and observe...overall an interesting day with a lot of situations I learned a lot from. We even got a lot of positive fedback from one of the nurses when were done for the dayI´m looking forward to a lot more to learn the rest of the week there.
At the house we made tacos for one of the other student´s birthday.. we celebrated her birthday, with partyhats and cake:-)
Sunday, September 21, 2014
MY FIRST WEEKEND IN WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA
The weekend is over when I´m writing this.. I´m in bed and getting ready for my first full week at the hospital: at Casualty..
Anyway, I had a good weekend...lots of sleep, good food and great summer weather.
On Saturday I slept in late before catching up on some reading for the exam I will have once I get back to Norway..studying in the sun is sooo much better than staying at home in Norway where it is getting colder and darker every day. A lazy afternoon before we went out for dinner at Joe´s Beerhouse. What a cozy and unique restaurant. I had "Bushman Sosatie", a selection of crocodile, zebra, kudu, oryx and springbox...very good and also cheap...8 people ate, drank alcohol, soda and coffee and had dessert for 1900 N$ .. knowing we will back there many times while being here.
Sunday was another quiet and relaxing day at home, laying outside and reading for my exam.
I went for a walk with 3 of the other students before we went groceryshopping for dinner: chicken, rice with garlic sauce, garlig bread and salad. Once again a delicious meal..I can get used to all these nice dinners while being here:-)
Anyway, I had a good weekend...lots of sleep, good food and great summer weather.
On Saturday I slept in late before catching up on some reading for the exam I will have once I get back to Norway..studying in the sun is sooo much better than staying at home in Norway where it is getting colder and darker every day. A lazy afternoon before we went out for dinner at Joe´s Beerhouse. What a cozy and unique restaurant. I had "Bushman Sosatie", a selection of crocodile, zebra, kudu, oryx and springbox...very good and also cheap...8 people ate, drank alcohol, soda and coffee and had dessert for 1900 N$ .. knowing we will back there many times while being here.
Sunday was another quiet and relaxing day at home, laying outside and reading for my exam.
I went for a walk with 3 of the other students before we went groceryshopping for dinner: chicken, rice with garlic sauce, garlig bread and salad. Once again a delicious meal..I can get used to all these nice dinners while being here:-)
Friday..and our first weekend is here..
Today we went to UNAM, university of Namibia for a reflection meeting. We were together with other nursingstudents from Sweden, Finland and Denmark. We were talking about our experiences at the hospital, our thoughts and got to ask any questions we had. We were also told about how the healthcare system works and got some info about Katutura hospital, where we all we be place for the next 2 months.
Afterward we went to Maerua Mall, the largest mall in Namibia to do some shopping, clothes and groceries. Needless to say, but after a few hours there we left with a shopping cart full of groceries and many bags of clothes..
We spent the evening home, outside by the pool: drinking, talking, singing and laughing.
We ordered in some pizzas for dinner, and still amazed how cheap eveything is here, 5 medium pizzas for 400 N$. We also invited some other girls for cheese and wine but they never showed up, their loss loosing out on our great company...
As old as I am I was the first one to go to bed, but a few of my other roommates went to bed not much later than me...
Afterward we went to Maerua Mall, the largest mall in Namibia to do some shopping, clothes and groceries. Needless to say, but after a few hours there we left with a shopping cart full of groceries and many bags of clothes..
We spent the evening home, outside by the pool: drinking, talking, singing and laughing.
We ordered in some pizzas for dinner, and still amazed how cheap eveything is here, 5 medium pizzas for 400 N$. We also invited some other girls for cheese and wine but they never showed up, their loss loosing out on our great company...
As old as I am I was the first one to go to bed, but a few of my other roommates went to bed not much later than me...
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