I’ve officially completed my first week as a student nurse extern! I am so excited for my rotations to begin and will announce all of my rotations next week. For now, if you are interested in seeing what my first week was like, keep reading!

Monday

The first day consisted of new team member orientation. In addition to the 40 of us nurse externs, there were also some new full time employees being oriented. Overall, it was your standard orientation day.

Tuesday

Tuesday consisted of more typical orientation content, except we discussed our schedules as nurse externs in detail, as well as our project and arrhythmia class. We had a meet and greet with several clinical nurse educators from various floors. Speakers also came in throughout the day to discuss: infection prevention, safe patient transfer/handling, ED patient experience, etc.

How am I feeling? Overwhelmed. At this point, I am so conflicted what type of nursing is for me. I absolutely love children, but hate the monotony of floor nursing. I’m curious to see how I function in the ED this summer, but am scared I will be a terrible fit. Lately, I have also been conflicted wondering if I picked the right career. There are aspects of nursing I enjoy, but have been let down by the poor “scientific” background of nurses. After all, the only courses I have enjoyed are Anatomy/Physiology, Microbiology, Pathophysiology and Pharmacology I am hoping this experience will help me “reconnect” with nursing.

Wednesday

Competency/skills check offs. Just when you think you are done with check offs! Fun fact, you are never done with these in nursing. Wednesday was a lot better because we moved through stations to learn this health system’s policies for Foley care/CAUTIs, safe patient transfer, etc. We also learned how to draw blood, as we will be allowed to on our own!

Thursday

Thursday was by far the worst day: EPIC training day. We sat through two three hour-long EPIC courses. The first course was helpful it was the ED version of EPIC, the second course was the in-patient version, which most of us were already familiar with from our clinical days. Needless to say when the clock struck four we were practically running out of that building. By the end of this day, I was feeling much better and eager to learn.

Friday

We had Friday off! I used this day to catch up on my planner and run errands to prepare for my 12 hour shifts starting Monday.

That was my first week as a nurse extern! If you have any questions about externship, nursing school or college feel free to ask!

Anna