Our last clinical rotation: The day I felt like a real Cmt'y Health Nurse

We finally came to the point where we will spend our last clinical rotation for this semester. Our group went to Bagbaguin Caloocan Health Center to finish the last rotation. It was a rather long trip from the school, and we even got strangled in a traffic jam on our first day. I didn’t expect that Bagbaguin would be so far away, and is probably located on the mountains. Luckily we rented a service for this trip, and then eventually found the center we’re looking for.

Bagbaguin Health Center was a rather big center we’ve seen so far in our rotations. It was located between the church and an elementary school. There, we finally met our Clinical Instructor, Ma’am Racquel Bernardo. She seems nice and kind towards us, not to mention her smile that greeted us. Not much CIs smile towards us often.

After a few minutes of orientation and a little tour around the place, we headed to the other health center which is at Caybiga. Caybiga Health center was a little small compared to Bagbauin, but even so, the place was still packed with mothers and babies. We were a bit shocked seeing the large numbers of mothers with their babies to be immunized. But even so, the health workers at the place were so nice and good to us, we often ask for their guidance in our work.

When we placed out bags down, we grabbed our stuff and headed straight to battle. We were assigned to each station, which are: admitting patients, taking vital signs, health teaching and immunizations. At first, I got assigned in the admitting station, where I did countless interviews and health teachings to the mothers. I know I made a lot of mistakes in recording and documenting the necessary data for chart, but little by little I learned a lot from my mistakes.

After a while, I finally got the chance to immunize babies and mothers. I thought I’m gonna be stuck downstairs and forever interview mothers. Thankfully, I got my chance to hold my syringe and poke them. I was really looking forward to this, coz I want to train myself in injecting syringes.

By the time we’re done with immunization, we ate our lunch and rested for a bit. Later in the afternoon, we went out to public and began giving off free Vitamin A to children. To add a little bit of spice and fun for the day, we took it as a race for us to who finishes with the most number of Vit. A given. We slipped in every nooks and crannies of the small town and gave vit. A drops for kids. We finished by 5:30 pm and got the number of 74 capsules of vit. A. It was a close fight for all of us, we were ranked 2nd place. It’s not that bad, we enjoyed giving off vitamins and helping people in need. It really made the end of our first day a blast.

The second day of our duty wasn’t really much different from the first. But this time, we worked at Bagbaguin Center. Since the place was much bigger than Caybiga, the place has more mothers and babies in line. Again, I started off with the admitting station, then to the immunization. Slowly, I got used in injecting babies and mothers. But I still make mistakes in recording in the patients charts. I learned I gotta take it slow and analyze the situation first, before writing stuff down on the chart. I even got reprimanded by our CI, but I took it in a nice way and viewed it for me to improve for the next time. I don’t mind being scolded, for as long as my mistakes are corrected, my skills will be improved for the better. I was fortunate to have a CI like Ma’am Racquel, she’d always explain to me how to do and what to do in the area. And I am thankful for her guidance.

In the afternoon, after the immunization and prenatal check-ups, we handled TB patients. To be honest, I was so scared in handling communicable patients. But I learned that we nurses must know how to deal with such cases. I handled 3 TB patients, and taught them on how to take their meds. I did a little health teaching on explaining what TB is. I also found out, that these patients are in a state of depression, so we nurses must learn and teach them on how to cope and deal with it.

After that, we ended the day by going to another small town and giving off free vitamin A for kids. It was a new program of DOH for April, so we’re starting off early this March to meet the target goal. We didn’t give that much that day, we only gave around 50 capsules or so. But even so, it felt good helping out people in a way.

When we went back to pack our things, we took a little moment to take pictures for documentations, as well as to make memories of the days we’ve spent in our last clinical rotation. I can say, it was a fun and tiring experience, but then again, we enjoyed that exhausting work all day. For me, those 2 days at bagbaguin really made me feel like a true Community Health Nurse.