so that's why they do that!

So one of the cool things about nursing school so far is learning the reason why health care professionals do the things they do - you know, the things that you see all the time whether from personal experience or the wealth of tv shows and movies out there, but you don't really know why they do it...or at least never stop to think about it.

Example one: Whenever a tv show shows doctors and nurses preparing for a surgery they always show the doctors holding their hands out in the air, even after putting gloves on. I always thought that was just so they wouldn't accidentally touch something. Nope. Well actually, that's part of it, but any area below your waist is considered non-sterile. And clearly in this case sterility is necessary. So if you drop your hands below your waist, even if you touch nothing, you've got to start all over and get new sterile gloves. When we learned that I was like, "ooooh so that's why they do that!"

Example two: I've never really stopped to think about why sometimes you take antibiotics and the first dose is greater than the rest of them. I just do what the bottle says, right? Well in pharmacology today we talked about "loading doses," which is when they give you enough of a drug to push you quickly into the therapeutic range (where you'll see the effects) and then after that give you maintenance doses which are smaller, to keep you in the therapeutic range. I mean, that's actually intuitive, so maybe I just was being lazy and not actually thinking about it. But I didn't really know the whole concept of the therapeutic range and maintaining that level and what not. So there's my second, "ooooh so that's why they do that." And now you can know that for the next time you take some antibiotics.

And last but not least, a few observations from my skills and concepts lab:
1) Having your teeth brushed by somebody else is pretty strange
2) Sponge baths - not so bad; it kind of felt like you were at the spa...I've never actually been to a spa, but you got to be lazy while somebody else did the work! (I only had my arm washed though.)
3) Bed pans - UNCOMFORTABLE! We had to lie on them in bed to get a feel for what it's like for the patient.
4) For handwashing being something I've done for as long as I can remember, doing it right is more complex than you'd think!

It's Friday!