Essay On Head To Toe Assessment

The first thing that comes to my mind about this clinical experience was it was slow. I understand this was mainly due to us not having many patients. I feel like we were jinxed just because we had two previous clinicals that were busy. I know that it can be hit or miss whether the obstetrics floor is busy; most of the time the babies decide when they are ready to come out. However, even with the slowness on the floor I still felt like I learned quite a bit. For example my fellow nursing students and I learned what a direct positive coombs test for a baby was. We also learned what phototherapy is and what it does. It was an interesting day in that regard. It is amazing what one can learn from even the smallest of experiences. One thing that went right during my shift was rounding. I always made …show more content…
The first way I applied my knowledge was a head-to-toe assessment. At the start of each shift, the nurse is required to obtain a head-to-toe assessment on each of their patients. I was able to do this for my patient; I made sure I focused my assessment on certain areas based on why she was admitted to the hospital. For example she had a LAVH done due to abnormal vaginal bleeding, so I made sure to monitor how much bleeding she was having after this surgery. Plus making sure her pain was under control. Another way I applied my knowledge was the 7 rights of medication administration. Each time the nurse and I would give our patient a medication we would go through these rights. The last way I applied my knowledge was being able to apply my understanding of topics that we went over in our obstetrics class. An example of this was how to appropriately draw blood from a baby, which is from the foot. Plus you have to warm up the baby’s foot first. In addition, I was able to use the knowledge that babies’ tummies are small at first so they do not need as much food. This helped when I fed the