PCARD

Hello friends and family!

I know its been a while since I have posted (sorry Mrs. Boggs!), but instead of posting first about all of the fun things I have been doing in Nashville I am going to tell you about where I will be working for the next year!

Yesterday was “Match Day”, which if you remember from my previous post we have been rotating around all of the units for +/-5 weeks and evaluating them as they evaluate us.  Basically we went through sorority recruitment…. but for real. Anyways, with much anticipation I found out yesterday that I am officially a Pediatric Cardiac nurse : ).  Our floor is 7a, but since all of the other specialized floors have a name, Vanderbilt decided 7a should be called PCARD!

One of the beautiful blessings I will have is remembering my sweet friend Morgan who passed away because of heart difficulties my senior year of college.  All of my sweet heart kiddos will forever remind me of Morgan and her lovely spirit.  Love you Morgan and excited to take care of kids who are special like you!

The Power of the Badge

So most of you know that I am regularly confused as a high school student… Which is fine and all, but sometimes it would be nice to have people at least think I’m in college.

Yesterday I had basic life support/CPR recertification with one of the guys in my program. Since some of the people in my program graduated in December, they don’t have their RN license yet (they have a white badge) while those of us who have already passed are official RN’s (we have a blue badge) .

While the other nurse resident (who has a white badge) and I were doing our practice CPR the instructor was chatting with us/watching and said “Megan are you Garrett’s instructor?” I chuckled and said no, thinking he was just joking.

After we took our written test I went in with a different partner and the instructor told is he was going to get us out quick so we could go home & I said or back to lecture (we still had class the rest of the afternoon) to which he said oh, you are a nursing instructor? Low and behold he was not confused!

Haha I know this does not seem blog worthy to most of you… However, to someone who is typically confused for a high school student it is quite wonderful. He thought I was a teacher. And no he was not flirting, he was older and married. Simply impressed by my CPR skills haha

My First Day!

Today was my first day as a Nurse Resident!  I have accepted a position in the Pediatric track at Vanderbilt’s Children’s Hospital and am so excited about this new journey!  This is a picture of me and some of the amazing new friends I have already made in front of our new hospital!

 These girls have been such a blessing already!  I am so very excited about what these next two years and beyond have in store!  We have all come from all over the United States with stories of our own and a goal to be the best nurses possible for children who come to our hospital!

Here’s a quick recap of what today was like for those who want to know what I did (mom & dad):
-We had a meet and greet this morning and learned that over 700 people applied to this program.  Whoa! I am one of 38 in the Pediatric track and I am excited to get to know all of the other girls! 
-Mostly today was boring stuff: going over benefits, parking fees (my paycheck is slowly but surely disappearing), picture for the badge, etc. 
-The rest of this week we have orientation and class…. yep out of school and still have class, but the good thing is we don’t have tests for these classes!
-After class I will rotate through various departments in the pediatric hospital for 7 weeks and then be placed in the unit where I fit best!
-Match day is March 18th!
-The rest of the year I will be in my unit orientation.
-January 2014 I will transition to RN2 and hopefully kind of know what I am doing!

YAY! I am ecstatic about working at such a wonderful institution and having the opportunity to really learn how to be a great nurse.  Thank you to my friends and family for all of your support to this point!  COME VISIT! 

Pictured here: Katie, Clarissa, Jenn, Me, Anna, Stephanie, Ashley & Kate!

Tips for the Day

today’s blog inspiration came from my morning tea
i used my room mates coffee mug for my tea & as i was working on some emails
i found encouragement and wisdom in the words printed on the mug

Here is what it reads:
10 Useful Ideas from Managerial Economics

1. Wealth is created when assets move to higher-valued uses.
2. Make sure employees have enough information to make good decisions, and the incentive to do so.
3. Contracts should encourage both investment and trade.
4. Recognize hidden costs and ignore sunk costs. 
5. Look ahead and reason back. 
6. The alternatives to agreement determine the terms of agreement
7. Anticipate moral hazard: if you make things safer, people take more risks.
8. Anticipate adverse selection: the good ones leave and the bad ones stay.
9. If there is no solution, there is no problem.
10. If you let your inbox run your life, you will never accomplish anything.

While the title says “managerial economics”, I think these (most of them) can be very useful in any sort of managerial/leadership position. 

Try Number 3

So here I go with try number three of blogging.  I did a pretty good job in Spartanburg and then when nursing school started decided I wouldn’t have time to blog.  I picked up at some point when I got bored in school, but it didn’t last more than a few posts. 

Now here I am in a new city, with a new job & lots of exciting things and I’m going to try for round three.  My inspiration: Kristen Walker. P.s. Kristen, time for you to start blogging too

The purpose of this blog is to share my life with friends and family with whom I do not live close to.  I will post recipes (*warning I am not the Pioneer Woman) and restaurants I try out, trips I go on, life lessons, my favorite things, and anything else I feel like.  Pretty awesome.

Run, Run Rudolph!

After the end of my semester I headed towards South Carolina to visit some of my friends.  Jessica, one of my best friends from Wofford, is one of the friends who was on the list to see.  Jess lives in Clinton, South Carolina, and has been pouring her heart out working for Campus Outreach at Presbyterian College.  Before I left Knoxville, she called me and asked if I wanted to run in a “Reindeer 5K” with her on Saturday….. I said yea.  Then she went on to explain there was a costume contest and after making sure that we would be participating in the contest I said HECK YES!

  Awesome, right? Jess had the idea for one of us to be Santa with reins going to the other person, who was Rudolph of course.  When we got to the race for sign-up we looked around at our competition and knew we were definitely going to win the best costume prize.

And there we are with our sweet prizes: over-sized YMCA windbreakers.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  After we ran, I got a tour of Clinton and went back to Jess’s house to rest, watch Christmas movies, and spend time with her little cat Hezacat…. just kidding his name is Finn.

Great times. Made my heart happy to spend time with Jess and see where her home is!

“As a nurse, we have the opportunity to heal the heart, mind ,soul and body of our patients, their families and ourselves.” -Author Unknown

Around this time last year I was sitting in my office at Big Brothers Big Sisters in Spartanburg, getting ready for our kid’s Christmas party all the while wondering if and where I was going to nursing school in the fall.  I am now sitting at Little River Coffee shop down the road from my old office at Big Brothers Big Sisters…. because I made it through the first semester and am visiting sweet friends!  The picture below is of myself and three of the girls who are in the accelerated bsn program with me at UT Knoxville on our first day.!

I cannot believe that one semester has passed!  It has definitely been a roller coaster ride with early morning clinicals, flu shots, care maps (f you don’t know what those are…consider yourself lucky), getting back into study mode, getting asked by people in the hospital if I was a doctor, and the list goes on.  It has been fun, hard, and thrilling— but I am so excited to have a month off to spend with family and friends!

This picture is of my clinical lab group on our last day at the hospital.  I really enjoyed the group of people I got to spend this semester with!