Practicum ~ Week 4 ~ Sterrad

Day 1 - This day I worked with Jody, she is the daughter of my mom's old visiting teacher when we lived on the north side. But today I was doing Sterrad - a low temp. type of sterilization -. It is not as busy and as complicated as autoclaving can be so its nice to have a slower week. It also is slower because not a lot of items go through sterrad, since it is not as popular as autoclaving. But it uses plasma instead of steam, and with this you have light sensitive integrators, tape, etc. Also it has different steripeeling - might I mention I rocked the steri-peel today- while doing nothing I did all gross lab stuff perfectly as well as the Sterrad stuff - so proud of myself. But this steripeel has more of a paper back, so it more easy to puncture than the regular steripeel that goes in the autoclave. But I just did hysterscopes today and I did an endoscope tele. Other than that it was just basins. Today though the talks between the coworkers were funny, especially since this one girl asked what were some movies that made us cry because I guess she cried about an episode on futurama.

Day 2 - Cake day! Lesley brought in a tradition red velvet cake with real cream cheese frosting on this day. It was sooo good, it had so much moisture and the frosting was so good. But on this day I made a critical mistake. I accidentally did not push the BI down hard enough in the pack coming out of the Sterrad machine, but it was only half pressed down and when this happens possible contamination can occur so thats what sucked but I did a lot of gross lab stuff on this day, and I am a pro at doing basins now. Jody showed me how to do the major basin which uses an square fold instead of an envelope fold, people that have been there for years would not even do it because it was so troublesome but I did it.

Day 3 - This day I had a different person that I was having all week. Today I had Elish who is the first woman I had in decontamination. It was nice having her today because she always had something for me to do. If I wasn't doing sterrad related things than she gave me retractors to do, sets to do, not just basins so it was nice. But today went smoother, I feel like I have sterrad down, I have my own system in there now and am confident in my skills in sterrad.  

Day 4 - Today I had this girl named Lindy, she had only been in the processing department for about 3 years. She was really nice, she is really tall and quiet, but one of the nicest person that I have worked with.  But she just let me do my thing and she specifically asked me if there was anything that I wanted to have more practice in and I told her I wanted to do trays so she tried to have me do as many trays as she could with the workload that was tonight. But there wasn't much tonight on the slate so it was very boring. While we were trying to find something to do Lindy found me a book to read about instruments, but not only the names but what the surgical uses for them were too so it was interesting to find out what some of the instruments are used for in surgeries. We also spent a lot of time in the dryers tonight since it was so friggin cold! It was creepy having the CPR heads in there with us though, it was like a scene from a horror movie.

Day 5 - today I was with a girl named Alex and although we really only did two loads of sterrad today she found me lots to do. First she found gave me sterili peeling certain things like Huck towels and then I wrapped or towels which got very boring but still it was something to do. I also learned today that for each sterrad load that they do it costs the department a thousand dollars so you should consider how much you put in a load. It should be pretty full to avoid wasting money which I think a lot of the other girls would do since there shouldnt have been that many loads if it costs that much. 

Sunday Funday - Cards -

This past Sunday I had a little girly day with Jessie Hein and we made cards. But the thing is she never made cards before, which I was really surprised by. She does practically everything else so I thought she would have made cards too, but by the end of the night I think she got a new hobby simply by how much she would save if she made her own cards. 

I made about 15 cards and she made about 7. The reason why I had so many is because I wanted to make thank you cards for the people that have taught me on my practicum and keep tabs on who has taught me thus far, just simply as a nice gesture.

But it was nice to have a girls night and now I have cards if I ever need them.

Practicum ~ Week 3 ~ Autoclaving

Day 1 - Today was autoclaving. This week already went off to a bad start since I got monday off due to family day. So it was kind of disorderly this morning. I guess the original perceptor that I was supposed to have called in sick, and one girl was late and the other was going to be late because she was called in. So I was just asked to sit in the break room before one of the two showed up and whoever did I would go with them for the day. So today my perceptor was Phaedra. 

But basically to start off the day, on a monday, you would wash out the autoclaves with metashine and then rinse it down to clean it. Then you would do a warm up cycle, a bowie dick test, then a leak test. Then you can put in your loads. The hospital here puts in a BI in every single load so that if one becomes negative you only have to recall that load rather than 3 loads before etc. Autoclaving basically is just a lot of paperwork and then you can work on other things, like I did some steripeel, then some wrapping like how I would have in instruments.

Day 2 - This day was pretty much exactly the same as the day before, except that I had a different person with me. The person that I had was Tami, she has a very vivacious personality and is very anal about certain things which you come to learn some people can have specific ways in how they do things, just depends on the person. But today we hardly had any work at all we did only 1 large cart, and a ton of little carts. So if there is no work to do, you just float around and do things. I just emptied the steris machines and placed them in the proper places that they should go. I did a synthes screw set, and put in new screws for it. Then I just wrapped basins, because everyone does that when it gets boring.

Day 3 - Mistakes! Mistakes! Mistakes! That is all that I had today, I kept on putting the wrong information on the different autoclaves, so if I meant to put the info. on one it would be the wrong slate or autoclave paper work that I needed to do. And to top it all off today was more boring than yesterday, so I was not focusing whatsoever. I even sat at a table reading tray sheets since it was so dead. Nobody had hardly anything to do at all, it was bad. 

Day 4 - Potluck! This day we had a "heritage" potluck, which meant that you would bring a dish based on your heritage. Honestly, hands down it was the best potluck i have ever been to, there was potato soup, hawaiian meatballs, there was pastries from this bakery called Klassy's (best bakery ever), homemade perogies, etc. It was so good, and so much good. Practicum wise though I was with Mike, he pretty much just let me run the show as if I was actually working there. It was nice because I was able to figure out my own flow instead of trying to learn someone else's flow. But it was another slow day again. I did lung biospy trays, core biopsy trays, steripeel, the normal stuff that you do when there is nothing else to do. But it was a good day and less mistakes. I was nervous in the beginnning though since he kind of let me take the reigns but I am glad that he did because I figured out my OWN flow. But it was a good day, my favorite of the week and with the potluck we had some good laughs too with some good food.

Stay tuned for next week...sterrad..dun..dunn...dunnnn. 

Movies

It was family day weekend and I had monday off of my practicum! We decided to go to a few movies on monday, one with my mom and the other with my boyfriend. Mom and I went to go see Saving Mr. Banks and it was a really great movie, it was really heartfelt. The pace was slow but it was nicer, seeing as I only really watch action films now or comedies but it was very good. 

The other show that I went to was with Jesse and we went to go see Jack Ryan: Shadow recruit. It was ok, the plot was different from every other CIA movie. It involved a public massacre with finances instead of weapons ( well there still was an attack but the finance part made it better). 

It just was irritating going to the movie because the first movie a person kept on kicking my chair while in the other there was a person point a laser at the screen the whole time, it was so irritating. So I think that I will avoid going to the movies for awhile after this.

Practicum ~ Week 2 ~ Instruments

This week I was introduced onto the other side of "the pit"..which is what they like to call the decontamination area. I thought that it was very weird at first that I no longer needed to gown up to be in the area, and to touch things with bare hands FINALLY was mind blowing on its own. I thought that touching things with bare hands would still contaminate the instruments so I was sketched out at first, but after the first 2 hours I began to realize its fine since things were not "sterile" yet.

Then I was introduced to the instruments, some of them including Kelly, Laheys, Mosquitos, hysters, etc. A lot of the instruments in the beginning looked so similar that I thought how the heck can you tell them apart??!?! But after doing so many sets you get used to how they look like, and I can identify Kelly from Laheys now and kochers (the hardest one to get into my mind). 

"Mosquito" forcep which is both straight and curved

"Kelly" forcep

That was pretty much everything that I did the first day. 

Day 2 - I did the same thing as the previous days, but it got extended into some of the items that I knew went onto the "alcohol table" in decontamination, so op laps, long laps, and cataracts. With the specialty equipment you have to take things that were diassembled and reassemble them so that the pieces do not get lost during the sterilization phase. But you just carefully assemble them back into the trays and then wrap them. This day was the first time that I got experience with wrapping, and let me tell you my first op lap, I got so frustrated that I got my perceptor to do it for me because the containers are so big in the first place, then the wrapper is really heavy so that it doesn't rip during the sterilization process. 

Day 3 - This day was different from all the rest. Today we mainly focused more on the specialty equipment, ortho pans, and power equipment for the instrumentation part. In the ortho pans, the only difference is, if a piece is missing like a screw or so, you go to the computer put in the number associated with the item and replace it since the screws cannot be put in and they are considered implants which would then have a BI in red on the tape since it is an implant. 

Stryker Triathlon Total knee tray that I did and wrapped.

Then I got to do some steri-peeling which is when you put a device into a pouch that is consisted of paper and plastic and heat seal it for the sterilization process.  They do items for day procedures, OR, a thing called gross labs - they inspect the specimens that were collected from biopsy -.

My perceptor too this week has been awesome, her name is Chelsey. She has the personality that is very fast paced, nerdy, awkward and sarcastic - but the kind of sarcastic where you cannot tell if they are joking until they say "just kidding". But she was funny, I kept on forgetting my chemical integrators into the packages to signify that they have been through the steam process. But I kept on forgetting them and everytime I did she told me I failed and that I might as well go home now..just kidding of course haha. Then I forgot one at the end of the night, and she just screamed out that I was hopeless and that I was the worst practicum-y ever..only jokingly again haha. But she is very knowledgeable and easy to get along with. I also found her really good at showing me sets and what to do with them.

Day 4 - This day was more of a boring day. I had to wrap basins (are a pain), do so much steripeel (which I struggled with a bit) and had to fold gauze for awhile. Then I was showed around the cart area, which is the area that I am going to work in on friday. So its nice that I got a little bit of a change from what I was doing for the last two days to work in case carts.

Day 5 - Today I did case carts, and it was not busy like it usually is since it is the long weekend and reading week so everyone will be gone. I guess next week only 4 theatres were booked for the whole week, normally it is like 9 theatres. We only had to do 20 carts instead of the normal 40 that they do in a day. All case carts is, is stocking carts for the surgeries and preparing stat carts (emergency carts). Then after we did case carts...first two hours. I did some steri-peel, I did some wrapping of instruments, some day pro trays etc. Just pretty much did anything that I could get my hands on.
And due to the long weekend they sent me home early. I thought Chelsey was kidding though since it is her new years resolution to be more mean haha.

And I got the biggest surprise at the end of the night, Jesse took me out for dinner at Montanas! I was just expecting mcdonalds haha. But it was great, my prayers have been answered in ways and I am grateful for Jesse, I love him so much and I hope to spend many more valentine's days with him. 

Practicum ~ Week 1 ~ Decontamination

I am going to start a new little series that I am going to update every week or so, not every day but at least once a week. This new series is all about my practicum that I am being a part of at the Hospital here in lethbridge and today's episode is....DECONTAMINATION!

The decontamination area is the area in which you clean all the instruments that have gone through the surgeries and you are just getting rid of the leftover debris that may still be on the instruments that can inhibit further cleaning processes. 

The OR or ER send down various carts in which there are planned series (we cross them off with a hot pink marker) and emergency surgeries/added that are marked by a ticket on the wall (unplanned surgeries). We then disassemble all the components of the carts (various forceps/needle holders/retractors they use etc). and soak them to get the blood and tissue off of them. Then if they are of a normal set (not complex) you would put them through the ultrasonic which provides cavitation(shaking rapidly) to get off further debris that was leftover from the initial clean and put them onto the carts to be put into the Steris systems.

Anything that is cannulated (has a hole in it) after it has been initially cleaned/soaked then must be blown through by compressed air on a white cloth to make sure that all the debris is out. Sometimes it takes a few soakings/blowing air to get all the debris out. Then what you do with the carts when they are empty is load it onto a cart wash which cleans the carts to make sure that no other debris is on there etc. 

But the hardest part is when you get ortho pans (orthopedic pans mostly knee/hip replacements). They are heavily soiled, very bloody and bone stuck in the spaces of the drill bit. Today I did my first set completely by myself and it took me about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to do because it is amazing where blood can hide in those sets! But I did it so yeah. But mainly I feel like I am beginning to become more and more comfortable. 

But from the first day it was hard because I did not have my original perceptor I was supposed to be with (she called in sick) and they had got rid of the spray arm which makes the job so much more faster than the method that I am currently used to. But since finding a method that works to have the instruments cleaned and such, it definitely got better and although there have been some things that have made some mornings quite difficult you just power through it. 

But in general that is what the first week of decontamination is like if anyone ever goes through the central processing program. It is hard, lots of moving around and the first day especially, you get pretty sickened by the amount of human debris that is leftover on the instruments(the smell gets you too.)

But that was my week in decontamination, only thing that is leftover in decontamination is to work on the specialty equipment which I am supposed to do tomorrow (if the girl that was asked remembers), and next week will be instruments!

Potluck!

Tonight was my sister's "goodbye" potluck for her and some friends tonight and I was invited. The people that went were Joyanne, Sera Johson, Miles, Chris Rowley, Amy and Naomi and later on Karen Knight came over with her service dog that she was training. It was nice to see all of my sister's old friends and I forgot how funny some of them were. Some of them travelled to come over such as Sera and Miles, they were coming from Calgary so they were a little bit late and when I got there Chris Rowley was already over. 

There mostly was just dessert type foods at the potluck such as fruit salad, Quinoa puffs, this chocolate square thing, etc. It was all very good but it was nice to go home and have a burger after. 

While we were there they played Quelf and mom got her fortune told or should I say unfortunate?

Quelf was, well quelf and was ridiculous. Amy had to wear tissue on her head like a mummy, and Naomi had to bark at anyone that was not a player that got within 15 ft. of the board. When mom got her fortune read by my sister through Tara cards, her fortunes were horrible. It said that this year she will make mistakes, she will not find love but to not worry because everything will be fine. So pretty much she is going to have a shit year haha it was just funny to listen to because each and every one was pretty much depressing except only two of the fortunes. She used a Tara deck that was from Russian Gyspy's I think? She got it at Josee's downtown which sells things such as this, crystals and essential oils so they centre around things like this. 

Later on after we went home, we had burgers which were really good and then we watched the movie The Croods. It was really good, It was a lot more funny than I thought it would be. I find that alot of the good movies is the ones that people tend to not like that much, but it was such a funny movie and highly recommend that people go and watch it.