I had two student nurses (one prelicensure, one nurse-midwife) at my most recent OB appointment. Pre-RN student was a train wreck: poor interpersonal skills, manner less than professional, kept calling me "hon" and was more excited that she was able to get a normal blood pressure reading on subsequent attempts than she was concerned about the high blood pressure on the first--and correctly done--attempt. She was so nervous and hyper it wore me out.
She meant well, I'm sure...but if this is what the local BSN program is turning out for nurses, God help us who live in this area. Hopefully she is not representative of the whole.
Nurse-midwife student was better and more professional for the most part, but her demeanor still screamed "student." Went through the motions of feeling how the baby was positioned, and still missed the location of heartbeat by a lot. Reviewed some history in too much detail--seriously, did she really need to hear again that resolved issues from 2003 were still resolved? Meanwhile, she glossed over other history which was more pertinent to my condition, such as my history of hypertension, psych issues and fibroids. After telling her that I spent the last six weeks with difficulty walking to due to sciatic pain, she still chided me for not exercising as much as I should have. She was WAY too focused on giving me education to hear my concerns about my blood pressure, vision issues and sudden weight gain (6 lb in 2 weeks can't all be salt). They were addressed with her remaking "well, it's the holidays, and if I stepped on the scale myself my weight would probably be up too."
I explained that a. I started the pregnancy overweight, b. I have not increased my food intake, and c. perhaps if they weighed me on the same scale they usually used instead of the one in the students' room, she may see my concern, especially if she's telling me that "there's such a big difference between the two scales." Especially since this scale had a fully-clothed me weighing more than 5 pounds less than a naked me weighed on my scale at home. And yes, my home scale is well-calibrated and pretty damn accurate.
In the end, I did get a preeclampsia screening out of her. She agreed that it was better that we get baseline data now. And better I get it done and told, "no preeclampsia, nothing to worry about!" than for the alternative to happen.
I didn't have the heart to tell either one I was a nurse. I think I may have freaked the Pre-RN student out and made her even more nervous if I told her that. I think the nurse-midwife may have figured it out when I used medical terminology fluently. Yes, I'm a psych nurse, but I can speak medical nurse pretty well.
Oh well.
Slow working for a while. I called out sick on Monday, off yesterday, today is pending whether they need me. Thursday is off, Friday and Monday were taken off as I have birthdays to celebrate.
