Clinical Experience Essay

I can definitely say that the first year working as a new nurse has been an unforgettable experience. There are great and terrible experiences that will stick with me the rest of my life. I think this first year has been stressful but very beneficial. As a new nurse, I was reminded on several occasions as to why I decided to become a nurse in the first place. Many of these occasions were personal, patient experiences. There is one patient that really encouraged me and we formed a special bond that I will never forget. I work on a Cardiothoracic Surgery Stepdown unit. My floor cares for many patients that have undergone a heart or lung related surgery, once they are stable enough to come out of the Intensive Care Unit. However, my floor also takes care of a special group of patients that have ventricular assist devices. The patient I had cared for that impacted me personally, was named Dorothy. Dorothy was one of the patients with a ventricular assist device. She was actually on of the individuals from the first group to receive a ventricular assist device at Duke University Hospital. Dorothy had a past medical history that involved the …show more content…
Dorothy’s vitals were stable all day, as well as no events with her actual ventricular assist device. Well it was getting close to shift change and Dorothy was trying to eat her supper when she started to experience frequent and increasing runs of ventricular tachycardia. When I ran to check on her she said that she did not feel quite right and lay back in bed. I started to monitor Dorothy’s blood pressure and contacted the Physician Assistant that was assigned to Dorothy. The Physician Assistant ran to Dorothy’s run to examine her and put in new orders for an Amiodarone bolus, otherwise the patient was