Physical Assessment Lab Final/Uniforms

This week was the second week of Physical Assessment. We spent Monday-Wednesday learning pulmonary and cardiovascular assessment, and musculoskeletal/neurological assessment. So far, so good. I keep reminding myself that listening to heart/lung sounds on a (very) healthy 20-something is very different from hearing them on a very large, or very old person. (The more tissue you have around your chest, the fainter your heart/lung sounds).

Today was the lab final, which went well in the end (got 48/50 points), even though I was nervous about it going in. The way it worked is that my lab partner and I went into an exam room, and I logged into the computer in the exam room. Our lab instructor, who was in another room, told us she was ready. Through a loudspeaker. Depending on your metaphor preference, it was like the G-d voice or Big Brother. Instead of watching over my shoulder, she watched me via two cameras in the ceiling. What was odd was that I didn't feel self-conscious about being watched during the exam itself; hearing the G-d voice was a little startling.

After the lab final, I went into another room in the lab/clinical practice floor to buy my student uniform. The pictures of nursing students on my school's website featured people in pinstripe oxford shirts and navy slacks. I was less than thrilled. I didn't want to press slacks or wear a button-down shirt tucked into slacks. Button-down shirts, especially unisex ones, just don't work for my body type.

But the uniform has apparently been updated. Now we wear navy scrub pants, a navy t-shirt with our school's seal on the sleeve, and a white short-sleeved jacket with the school seal that looks like a less formal lab coat. I was pleased, once I finally found pieces in my size to try on. The uniform people brought a range of sizes (XS-XXXL), but most of the girls who came from the morning lab section were sizes XS-M, and some were XXS, so trying to find a small in anything was chaotic. But I ordered two elastic-waist cargo scrub pants (I have a drawstring pair of scrub pants from Brandeis Chabad, and think the elastic waist fit me better), two t-shirts, the white jacket, and two name pins (in case one gets lost/broken. And in a few weeks, I'll be signing my name with VUSN (Villanova U. Student Nurse) after it, which is pretty exciting.