O boy O boy O boy!!!!!!

I just received an e-mail yesterday from Hershey Medical Center stating that I have been accepted as one of the summer externs for this year! This is exciting to me. When I went for the interview the other week, they had said that if I get the position I would be working on the 4th floor Acute Care Specialty Unit which "consists of 46 private beds and includes 16 telemetry beds." They treat neurology, neurosurgical, ENT, plastic surgury, ophthalomological, traumatic, and urology patients. I still have to go through a little bit of paperwork and some legal stuff like a drug screening to finalize the employment, but basically I have the position reserved....I'm in!

The beginning of the spring '07 semester is coming fast. Too fast. I got all the books for this semester, and I'm starting to get really worried. All of this big fat books I previously saw in the college bookstore in the nursing section, well, here they come. The one book is three inches thick. I'm in trouble now; I only read about 80-100 words per minute. Once again, no life for me this semester. I will be like a distant acquaintance to everyone this spring.

I also got the schedule for clinicals this spring. I have been scheduled to do clinical rotations at St. Joseph's hospital in the city of Reading and at Phoebe Berks Village in Wernersville. That's great because of all the possibilities these two facilities are the closest to home for me.

I guess I'm in for the real deal now. Up to this point I was starting to get a little bored with just studying prerequisites and taking all of the general education requirements and so on, but now we will go out and put that stuff to use. Exciting? yes. Worried? yes

Pooches and Hershey

Here is an interesting change of events. During this winter break I am working for the same employer that I worked for over the summer. I built silos all summer, but that is not the only business my boss owns; he also has a wood shop for making furniture, and a dog kennel with about 200-300 dogs. The silo work is sort of slow right now, so I asked if he needed help in the kennel. I didn't have to ask twice. Apparently the SPCA is really cracking the whip on kennel owners in PA right now and everything has to be just right to suit them. I spent most of today trimming the dog's nails. There will be more of that tomorrow and some of them will need their fur trimmed. I sort of like it. We haven't had any pets at our place for a while, so this is sort of fun. I know it has nothing to do with majoring in nursing, but that's all right. I need the money to keep me afloat during the semester.

Here is something else that does have to do with nursing. Yesterday (1/03/'07) I had an interview at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. I don't know yet for sure, but there is a possibility that I will be doing an externship there this coming summer. I will know probably withing a week whether I've been accepted for sure. While I was on the campus, I took a tour of the Life Lion Aeromedical hangar. The paramedic that was on duty showed me around the place and told me that their helicopters go about 180 mph, but that one of the pilots had it up to about 220 mph once when there was a strong tailwind. It was all impressive. Check out www.hmc.psu.edu/lifelion for more information on Life Lion. They have some cool pictures of their "birds."