by: psycho-nurse_LEI_OTACAM I started to volunteer as a nurse last April 2010 at ____________ Medical Center. My first ward assignment is Ward _____ also known as “The General Ward”, “ER Ward” or “Temporary Ward.” Located at the basement of the hospital, it’s like a building-size oven toaster during the afternoon. Though it’s well ventilated with a lot of electric fans and large windows it’s still a bit humid inside the ward. On my first day of duty I was expecting to see another 2 volunteer nurses that will help me with the task assignment, but to my surprise I was alone. The first one is sick and the other one changed her schedule. The senior nurse gives me a short orientation about the ward and after that the endorsement begins. “Census 84” said the other nurse. The ward is big but I didn’t expect that it has a crowd of patients.
After almost an hour the endorsement ended. As I look on the task assignment, the task assigned to me was to check vital sign and to compute I and O. Since it’s my first day I’m a bit energized…so I ended up taking the vital sign of almost all the 84 patients… almost all because since the ward is so big I can’t find some of the patients listed in my vital sign monitoring sheet. Since I’m so busy taking the vital sign I wasn’t able neither to eat nor to have a bladder break. The next day… was the same as the first day... I’m still alone facing 80+ patients, but this time I’m wise enough to skip those patients who’s already stable, those patients who has MGH order, and those who doesn’t look so ill. In just two days I earn a DOCTORATE degree in taking vital signs ^__^v. But in the end I still wasn’t able to eat. As days pass I have adjusted well enough to the wards activities. Soon some volunteer nurses join me in handling the 130 bed capacity ward. All in all it was a nice experience. The staff nurses and nursing attendants were all kind and very approachable, I was able to meet a lot of wonderful people, and though most of the time, the task assigned to us is taking the vital sign and computing the I and O. The staff nurses are kind enough to let us experience everything that’s happening inside the ward. I managed experience and almost master IV insertion, blood extraction, catheter insertion, meds and IVF computation, wound dressing, morning care and a lot of bedside activities. Sometimes they also let us to handle the paper works, from charting, to patient admission, referrals and sometimes even updating the kardex. I was having a great time in the afternoon shift that I didn’t realize that a month has already passed and it’s time to change the schedule. Here comes the morning shift. Almost everyday we have to do the morning rounds with the nurse supervisor. I don’t know what it is that she wants to happen but she always asks us to change the arrangement of the beds… from one corner to another corner…from one side to another side. It’s a bit tiring and energy consuming. I never though that morning shift is this harsh, no wonder the former volunteers from morning shift wanted so eagerly to switch schedules with the afternoon volunteers. Time passed… our task from doing vital signs, I and O, and running errands shifted to cleaning the bed sides, painting the cabinets, and removing the adhesive tape marks on the head and frame of each single bed. I don’t want to sound complaining because a little bit of me enjoyed those task and since the staff nurses is doing it too I don’t see any reason why I should complain. BUT I think I should have complained since there are workers who are being paid to do those tasks. It’s a bit unfair to the side of the volunteer nurses who supposedly doing “STAFF NURSE’S TASK” out of good will and without receiving any form of salary or compensation to do such a thing like removing adhesive tape marks on 130+ beds. There is the engineering department and the maintenance personnel who are PAID to do that stuff. I don’t regret applying as volunteer nurse because I have learned a lot from it. I never took the lack of monetary compensation as an issue since I looked at the “volunteer nurse thing” as a ground to gain experience for future employment. If I will be asked to do another “volunteer nurse job”, I will gladly accept it! After four fruitful months of volunteering as a nurse, I decided to stop for a while to have some breath of fresh air, but I wasn’t able to comeback since another opportunity came in… this time it’s called a “nurse trainee job” but its almost the same….the only difference is you have to pay 2500 Php to be a nurse trainee for 6 long months, but it is super the same! Though they promise to hire you after your training, you better not keep your hopes up. There’s no way they can hire all 250 trainees neither after 6 months nor even after 1 year nor even after 2 years and nor even after dooms day. But it’s another story. That’s almost all of it. I hope you enjoy reading my bad English as I explained my experiences as a nurse volunteer/trainee/OJT or what ever they called it! Sorry for my bad English... my professor in English would die in shame if he sees this. Hehehe ^_^V | 
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