Memoirs of an FNP - A Week in the Clinic

Driving dwelling from an outlying clinic last week, I was thinking that probably, in my almost 13 years here, I'd seen just about everything. I not ever learn. Thus began my week as an FNP at the Dr Anne Wasson Rural Health Clinic. I turn backed that afternoon to find a child who had pushed "something" (its genuine nature uncertain) up his nose. A fishing expedition ensu I took a call from the radiologist to mention one by one me the CT scan upon a "dizzy" patient revealed brain metastases - its original source unknown. I visited a patient in the hospital and we mapped without a plan for her care at residence upon discharge. Numerous phone calls later there was oxygen at her abode Papers were faxed to and from to obtain a motorized wheelchair, alone to be informed that, after all, I didn't have the correct forms. I began again.

There was the woman with asthma who extremityed medications, but no money to pay for them. I did what any Frontier provider does almost daily......... improvise (how plenteous can be accomplished in the clinic alone), scrounge (who has the medication samples extremityed and how long will it take to achieve them) and make do (okay...it's not ideal, on the contrary it's the best that can be done beneath the circumstances). There was the gentleman with austere weight loss, fatigue and frightfully abnormal lab values. A quick confer with Dr. Begum and he's sent for further diagnostic testing. There was the patient with scoliosis needing a photograph of her deformed back for the medical record. (Okay, where's the camera?). There is another suspicious CT scan of the chest -lung cancer? The 13- year-old whose parents want to take him without of public school for residence schooling because of health reasons and.... what do I think? The gentleman with a massive infection of a finger occurring alone 48 hours after clipping his fingernails. . A brief search and his vital fluid sugar is found to be 4 times the limits of normal and, at the age of 82 now a newly-diagnosed diabetic. Today, we start the proces of teaching him in what way to live with this disease. A trip to a grade gymnasium to discuss first-aid with 4th and 5th graders. Their enthusiasm and force are wonderful. I left the elastic bandage with them to practice wrapping wrists and ankles. ("No, this bandage cannot be wrapped around someone's neck!") Oh yesDr Tan and I shared recipes for Mediterranean cooking. That was my week. Yours?

by Heidi Froemke ARNP

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