www.littlenars.com | Dianne Peña

I killed a person today.

I thought what I know was enough to revive Hal but I was wrong. I let him die— well, our group let him die.

Our group was assigned to the FEU-VINES (Virtual Integrated Nursing Education Simulation) Laboratory for our duty on Acute Biologic Crisis concept and with this concept, we will going to simulate a cardio-pulmonary resuscitation to the mannequin named HAL. The scenario was, the client was coding (with our clinical instructor controlling his status) and we should revive him the best way we could according to what was taught to us.

During the simulation, we have given too much epinephrine to Hal without the interval of 3-5 minutes that made him more critical and so, still with constant compressing and hyperventilating, at times defibrillating, our clinical instructor just said, ok Post Mortem (meaning, we didn’t revived him.) Then, stopped and pronounced the time of death.

My critical mind tells me, “We we’re used to our AHSE (Associate in Health and Science Education) days to just assume things and not “really” do the procedure that is why we forgot to say “After 3 minutes blah blah blah…” which killed Hal. I learned that “To assume is a mortal sin.” Also, our adrenaline rush and increase of our excitatory neurotransmitters leads us to forgetting things. — That was I, using Rationalization.

Though Hal is just a mannequin, he was still my patient and I was frustrated because our efforts was not enough to revive him as much as we do want him to survive. (In VINES laboratory, mannequins are treated as “real” persons).

I was on mixed emotions because I felt like a real nurse (we are even called “junior nurses”) in that scenario but I was saddened by the fact that we didn’t revived him. I enjoyed the simulation because I learned a lot of things but I was dismayed for the little mistakes we’ve made. Nevertheless, this will make me to bear all the things I’ve learned today in my heart and not repeat the same mistake over again.

Don’t worry. I am Ok now. =)

Far Eastern University, Institute of Nursing has this rotation of schedules for duties and lectures. They shift schedules every grading period to rotate the students equally in their clinical exposure and not to come in conflict with their lecture days. Two days will be spent for lecture, three days for clinical exposure and one day for our rest day.

Last preliminary period, I have a Monday-Wednesday duty days and Friday-Saturday lecture days which make Thurdays a rest day for me which I haven’t felt because of busy schedule.
Now that we are on the Midterm period, my schedule is now Monday-Tuesday lecture days and Wednesday-Friday duty days, which make Saturdays my rest day. It’s a good thing for I can rest for two consecutive days considering that the next day is Sunday.

If you would connect this blog entry to my “E-learning Blues” post, Saturdays are now my E-learning day and I was able to attend it. Finally! Though I arrived late, I was able to finish at least 2 topics. I was somewhat dismayed when I learned that the E-learning people closed the module that I am previously doing which means that I can’t continue it anymore and gives me a 0(Zero) mark on each quizzes in that particular module. Poor me! Anyway, I will try to finish the module that I am into right now which is about Acute Biologic Crisis.

Congratulate me for I have attended my E-learning the second time! LOL! *claps for me… I have my e-learning schedule on all Saturdays of August. Hopefully (Again…) I can attend to all of those.

Inkling:
What a long introduction… BOW!

Each of us desires to have a stable family of their own. We dreamt of a perfect family we could ever even fathom. I am sure everyone knows that a family comprises of a father a mother and a child or better, children. I can clearly remember of how my grade school teacher wrote the word FAMILY in the blackboard one sunny day. It was bold and capitalized. She finished it with an underline and said that it literally meant Father, Mother, I Love You but what if one of them is out of the picture? then, here comes the tough part. Broken families… could it still be called a family or just another “group of people”?

Incomplete, Abandoned, Unwanted, Discriminated, Separated, Imperfect, Unfortunate, Broken… those were the words connected to a family who has fallen apart, this is the social stigma attached to them. A family is supposed to be intact, united, loving and nourishing but due to some instances, it doesn’t. Living in a modern world today, I am aware of the many families crashing down. I have friends and I have myself to testify to that. Failed marriages, Unwanted pregnancies, Illegitimacies are the most common reasons for this. Yes, I am from a broken home. Some keep it as a secret because of the aforementioned reasons, they are shy and ashamed but I chose not to.

For 9 years now, I have been living with my hardworking, persistent and loving mother, who is a mother and father all in one for us. She has the most amazing and challenging job in the world being a solo parent. She never fails to provide us with everything though I know she is having a hard time considering that she doesn’t receive any help from my father but she always manage. I really admire her for that.

(more…)

The most common thing or if I may say the only thing that people answer when you ask them about Jose Rizal is that he is our national hero— idol and he is found in our 1-peso coin— icon. Sad to say that, in our modern times today, people have very limited knowledge about our national hero. The facts above are the only two things most of us know about Jose Rizal but for historians and experts; they have so much adjectives to connect with our national hero.

Bayaning Third World, a “detective” story about Rizal being Philippine’s National Hero. Commenting on the movie per se, at first I thought it was some boring documentary about Rizal but understanding the facts exposed made me interested. The film was in black and white but it didn’t hindered my amusement because of the funny way they presented the most serious facts about Rizal. The movie was easy to understand if you were able to read about his life story or if you have tackled his life in your Filipino or Rizal subject but if not, you may get confused. Good thing, I have read and we have tackled his life in our lecture— that helped me follow through the film. This film also highlighted Rizal being a “Pilosopo” which reflected the Filipino attitude both in a good and not so good way. They also showed Rizal’s letters and documents which was commonly taken for granted to unveil the truth about his controversies. The movie made it “viewer-friendly” by face to face interviews with the persons involved and that is why I appreciated Rizal’s significant others behind their names.

(more…)

Just an update from my E-learning blues…

Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend again because of heavy rains, interrupted LRT operation, also the main purpose of me going to school are my group mates whom incidentally are not there also, I have to get something from them and so I didn’t attend. Actually, I was ready to go to school, I has holding my money and ready to go out of the rain when I learned that they weren’t there, I immediately retrieve.

My mom was able to read my blog about this. She knew that I am not attending this class because at times, she is also here at home… She read my post in front of me and then she just said…

“Dianne, umattend ka na nga, binabayaran ko yan ehh…”

and so, my conscience bugged me so much and that I said to her…

“Oo, sige sa susunod na schedule aattend na ko…”

Hopefully, I can attend it already… I am soooooo hoping… =)