LOOK OUT!

Tonight I got to help out at a free clinic in Harrisburg. I REALLY liked it, even though I only truly saw one patient. To preface, I'd just spoken on the phone with a friend about how I've never given anyone a shot. It went something like this:

"Wait...you've never given anyone a shot?"
"No...but I've started IV's."
"You'd think they'd have had you practice giving shots before now!"
"Yeah, I think nurses practice on oranges."
"Oranges? I don't think that really mimics a human's skin and muscle."
"I guess not, but then why have so many nurses practiced on oranges then? That's what my mother told me to do. She said 'Katie, you should practice on an orange.' Maybe I should practice on an orange sometime."

Umn, no practice. No oranges. The resident says to me, "Do you want to give your patient a flu shot?" To which I think I responded with the color semi-draining from my face. And then he said, "You want to learn, right?" And I said, "Of course!"

Give someone a shot...someone I'd just told I'd never given shots before...

What a super lady she was. We were both a little nervous. I just kept wanting to be ABSOLUTELY sure that there were no air bubbles in the syringe after I'd loaded it with the vaccine. They both said to me "you're doing great!" a lot. Because I must've let my nerves show. Oops. Not the best way to put a patient at ease. But then the resident walked me through it and I grabbed her skin/deltoid, and just shoved the thing in real quick-like!

Orange-peel it was not.

This is why med school is so fun. At any second you're faced with something that makes you nervous, but you're also really intrigued by it, so you just go through with it anyway and find out that you CAN do things like insert needles full of fluid into peoples' skin!

I should've thanked that lady more.