Average

My Maternal Newborn grade wasn't stellar, only average - like most of my work here has been this year. I always feel like like my head is barely above water, and every now and then I actually go under but come back up so that my nose is resting on the surface...so I can breathe, but barely...It's not fun to work so hard and only be average, in fact, it's maddening. And every (I'm guessing) midwifery student probably thinks they should get the absolute best grades they've ever gotten right now, in the Maternal Newborn section of this first year in the program...I mean, that's what we're here for after all...but that just isn't the way it works...learning takes on a whole new meaning when you realize you are really, seriously, going to be responsible for the stuff you're learning...it's not like Psych, where one says I will just try to absorb as much as I can that might help me in my actual field, but it's not the end of the world because, well, I'm not going into Psych. Now it seems I am obsessed with every single detail, like my life (or more accurately, the woman in front of me) depends on it (because it will), and so it is really, really irritating to be "average" because who wants to be an average provider? An average midwife? Certainly not me.

Maternal Newborn

After a week of Maternal Newborn class I remember why I came to nursing school. Every day is like a connecting of dots. It's such a different learning experience when you're familiar with the terminology and you absolutely love and are interested in the topics before the class even begins! For once I can actually sit back and enjoy the lectures without scrambling to write down notes of things I need to look up because I've never heard it before. Most terms and concepts are familiar and the ones that aren't are like light bulbs turning on in my head as I recall reading something about it that never really made sense until now! And it's amazing how much more quickly time goes by when you're interested...I sit front row middle seat for this class and don't leave at all during the 2-3 hours of class.

The professor is another story, but it's tolerable. Actually, she's really very good but her social skills are seriously lacking...her affect is so flat and she is so stern; I think students routinely feel intimidated, sad, mad, frustrated after asking her a question because she is so condescending. I don't ask many questions, but I feel sorry those who do...but then too, we have so many people who ask questions just to hear their own voices that half the time I'm laughing in my head at her response to them...I should stop...but I can't...LOL

I have so much work to do and so much reading, but what's new? At least I want to read what's assigned!

End of Quarter/Next Up

The quarter ended last Friday, finally. There's so much to say about it, but so little energy to even go there. It's like I've finally finished and I don't want to even think about it anymore. But I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the accomplishment of surviving Biomed. I will do it in another post in which I will also explain how I finally figured out how to study for that class. Here's what I can muster with the little energy the quarter left me with:

Psych class ended just as dry as it began. It was just a very easy no brainer kind of class in which I could have learned more but I didn't force it because I was focused on other stuff. It was an easy High Pass, and I'll take it. Psych clinical on the other hand was challenging (as I've already explained in other posts) and although I am glad to be moving on from it, I will miss it because I really like non-hospital nursing. It was dramatically different than Med Surg (which everyone knows I didn't like that much) and I got to work with patients who I could easily connect with and who solidified my choice, which is important because while everyone else was having their "this is why I am going into nursing" epiphanies during Med Surg, I was thinking "what the hell have I gotten myself into?"

Pharm ended, and I'm glad for it. I don't feel like I learned much in that class. It was a horrible seminar that had a different incompetent lecture every period. I hardly ever saw the professor for the course because she was never there, although she wrote most of the exams. Memorization, memorization, memorization - most of which went right out of my head immediately following the exam. And then I realized that she had a ridiculous curve and my studying dropped off completely because, study or not, my grades were the same. Just no motivation for that. We will take Pharm twice more before we graduate. Maybe next year it will be better.

Next Quarter starts in two weeks after spring break. This is what we are taking:

Maternal Newborn (Can we say FINALLY)
Nutrition
Issues in Nursing
Pathophysiology (continues from last quarter)

I'm actually looking forward to this set of classes like never before. Maternal newborn for obvious reasons, Nutrition-because I think it will interesting, and Issues in Nursing-because I love the topics and that we will finally get our noses out of a textbook! Patho is neutral - I'm just dealing with it.

Overall, this quarter went by very quickly. I can only hope that the next one does as well so I can finish and move on.

On another note, I took a survey for grad and professional students that was designed by the student senate to gauge their progress in providing activities for grad/prof students across campus and was pleasantly reminded that I do actually participate in more than just class. A while ago I posted that I wanted to begin to take note of things I do on campus, other than work and study. Well, for the survey we had to check off all of the things that we had done from the list that they provided. When I got to the bottom, I realized that I had checked almost EVERY SINGLE ITEM. (I had not attended a very special sporting event) Anyway, I have visited a campus museum, attended a talk, attended an on-campus conference, went to a U sponsored happy hour, went to a theater production (and my first cabaret!), and a couple other things that if I mentioned would give my school away!

I Always Say

...I miss fat people. Well, I have the perfect example to illustrate why that is:

Last wednesday evening, I was studying for the 2nd med surg exam with my student mentor, who also happens to be the TA for the course. Her friend and roomate is the only big girl in their class of 60+. (I am the only big girl in my class of 80+) And let me just say, by "big" I mean "not skinny, and a little past thick," or for those of you who don't mind the term, FAT. Anyway, this big girl came over to us and was distraught. For real. Why? Because someone had the audacity to come up to her and her physical assessment partner and tell her partner that he shouldn't do his physical assessment (which included a breast exam) on her because the bigger the person is, the more time it takes to do the assessment, and if you don't finish the assessment in the allotted amount of time, you get docked points. And he was risking points by choosing her as a lab partner because she was big, and her breasts were big. (This all happened a few feet away from me)

Now. Ok. This is true, it takes a little more time to do an assessment on a fat person because (duh) there's fat covering their entire body. So, when you're feeling around the stomach for example, you gotta press harder, and sometimes you still don't feel what you're looking for. It is especially hard to palpate (feel) for the liver and bladder when someone has a lot of adipose tissue (fat) or sometimes hearing the heartbeat is a little harder because (duh) the stethoscope can be much farther away from the heart depending on the amount of fat or skin. But even with that, we're talking a significant amount of fat, which no one in this program is big enough for this to be the issue. It's the difference between doing a breast exam on a small breast and a large breast - there's more breast to assess, if that makes sense.

Regardless:

1. This is the most skewed cross-section of a population I've ever seen. There are more pre-pubescent body types in our class than in an issue of 17 magazine. So here we are doing all these practice exams on people with no body fat at all, when the US population more often has a little fat than not. People had better get used to touching/feeling fat people. The day when you simply pretend they didn't exist is long gone for you, future NP. Everyday you will be confronted with us, and I dare you to act like you don't want to touch my skin.

2. Who the hell are you to walk up to two people who aren't even talking to you and voice your idiotic opinion to make some one feel inferior? Yes, I know we have the cute little saying that no one can make you feel inferior with out your consent, but I'm here to tell you, words hurt even the strong and the brave, sometimes. Hell, my feelings were hurt, and she wasn't even talking to me. Just from one fat girl to another.

3. Why the hell are we being so competitive? It's a freaking POINT. Isn't the measly point worth getting hands-on experience with someone whose body type actually mimics the actual patient population?

4. It's a d-e-m-o-n-s-t-r-a-t-i-o-n, meaning, you aren't actually trying to find something wrong, you are simply trying to demonstrate that you know *how* to look for something, you aren't actually assessing whether the person has a S3 heart sound, just that you know *where* and *how* you would put the stethoscope to hear it. So, really, you aren't spending that many more seconds than anyone else.

Maybe people are wondering why this matters so much to me. It matters because the lack of diverse body types is sometimes isolating in itself. But to have someone actually think they can actually walk up and comment on your weight/size/shape is especially troubling. I know we spend a lot of time assessing health, so it's only natural to observe those right in front of you, but there has to be respect. Being fat (or black, or jewish or anything else) does not mean that you have the right to inspect, evaluate or *touch* yes, I said touch! me. And, if you do decide to interrupt my private conversation and make a a comment *about* me, please have the decency of saying it *to* me, instead of talking about me, right in front of me, as though I am invisible.

I wanted to say something to the girl who made this comment, but I can't fight other people's battles for them.

I wanted to post something else today. I am reading Alice Walker right now, and realize that something is about to change in me. But now, I don't have the time.

I Couldn't Even Finish

I failed the A&P test miserably. In fact, I didn't even allow myself to see the score, I just completely exited from the test. There was no need to finish because I was on question 60 (Of 87) and had only answered 10 questions-and all of those were 1-pointers! And the test just kept getting harder and harder. (I read the whole thing - in awe - just to make sure there weren't any that I knew floating around at the end)

I can't believe I'm headed right back to A&P. So many hours of my life wasted last year. What kind of education did I really get? I got decent grades in this course (a B for fall semester and a C+ for spring semester) but couldn't even begin to crack this test. 19 credit hours. I took 19 damn credit hours to fit A&P into my fall schedule. Do you know how hard that was? Apparently not hard enough.

In all fairness to my agonizing soul, the test was *incredibly* hard. I think most people made this an open note, open book test because it was online and to be taken in the privacy of your own home. I know the girl sitting next to me did. "Just use the book," she said. I could've and passed it easily, but there's that nagging matter of integrity. But are there ever moments when one gets off her internal high horse and takes the low road? Was it really worth me spending FOUR HOURS every Friday of the next three and a half months in a class I already took for a whole year? I had doubts about my ability to do the work before I got here (because I know the inadequacy of my math and science public education) but it's different when you actually begin the work. It messes you up psychologically.

So, today I experienced my first (surely over-exaggerated) catastrophe, and I am asking myself, "Are you gonna go home and cry, or open your med surg book and read for tomorrow's lecture?"