Capstone

My first day:  Notice the BYU lanyard.  I got quite a bit of teasing for that since PCMC is connected to the University of Utah hospital. :)

My final semester of nursing school was capstone.  I spent my capstone rotations on my DREAM unit, the pediatric intensive care unit at Primary Children's Medical Center.  I learned so much and really came to love working in the critical care environment.  My preceptors, Ian and Sarah were wonderful and so patient with me as I slowly got used to being in charge.

For those of you who don't know, capstone is the very last rotation of nursing school where you, hopefully, by the end of the semester have learned how and are comfortable being the nurse in charge of a typical patient load on your unit.  Eventually, I was really comfortable communicating with other member of the health care team; doctors, pharmacists, social workers, respiratory therapists, techs, dialysis nurses, etc.  I learned to how to run ventilators, manage arterial and CVP lines, monitor the CRRT (sort of like dialysis but for liver failure instead of kidneys), and so many other things that I can't even list.  It was fantastic and I miss it already.  If Craig and I ever end up back in Utah, I would LOVE to be a permanent addition to that unit.