Surveys, Getting Lost, and the PACU!

Hey everyone! Welcome to the second to last post!

Anyways, this week at the NICU I spent a majority of my time getting more surveys done. For that reason, instead of observing at CCN units, I observed in a bedside ICU pod, where there were about 10 babies and at least 6 nurses. It was a pretty regular day at the NICU, with continuous feeds and cares going on every few hours, the ophthalmologist (specialist in the forms and diseases of the eye) taking eye exams of the babies, and family members coming in and out to visit their child.  After I finished interviewing the majority of the nurses who weren’t busy in that pod, I went over to another pod to interview more. Also, for those of you asking about the patient who had a loss of breath last week, the baby is fine and now in a better condition than before.

At the Pediatric Surgery Clinic this week, I went early to conduct more surveys with people who work there but I don’t normally see, meaning the physician assistants who work with the other surgeons or the clinic staff who I hadn’t met before. Along with that, I actually interviewed another surgeon of the clinic while he walked from the clinic to the OR unit, which was slightly stressful because I had to look at the questions off my phone and memorize his answers while trying to remember the halls that we were passing and turning through. Although I did manage to remember his answers and write them down before I forgot, I did forget the way that we walked, so I spent about the next half hour trying to navigate myself back to the clinic. Banner Desert Medical Center is HUGE, so it’s not easy to try and find your way once you get lost in those dozens of hallways. I felt like I was in a maze of white painted hallways with confusing signs and repeating walkways.

The most interesting day of the week was definitely the last one where I got taken to the PACU and the pediatric OR. In order to get a new perspective on the surveys, Dr. Vegunta suggested that I interview healthcare personnel who care for adults, because everyone I had interviewed so far with the survey worked within pediatrics. A lovely nurse at the Pediatric Surgery Post-OP area led me down those dozen hallways once again to the PACU, the post-anesthesia care unit, an area where patients come to recover and wake up directing after a surgery or other type of procedure requiring anesthesia. It surprised me how different the environment was of the adult care area in comparison to the pediatric care. The pediatric care area is so much brighter, colorful, and relaxing in comparison to the adult recovery area. The PACU was huge but it was also packed, as it was a busy day in the operating room.  Although I didn’t want to disturb anyone who was with patients or blatantly very occupied, I managed to get about 7 surveys from nurses there.

This is a picture that I found similar to what the PACU looked like, but without the beds. 

After I came back to the pediatric OR, I scrubbed up into appropriate attire and observed a appendectomy (surgery to remove the appendix). The appendectomy was actually a lot larger than I imagined, I was surprised at its length when they removed from the patient’s body and put it in the container.

In total, this week was highly concentrated in getting as many more surveys done as I could possible. I’m currently working on compiling the results and finding more patterns, which I will show you all next week, in the last week of the SRP!
Thanks for reading :)