I started nursing school at the Linfield Good Samaritan School of Nursing on June 24, 2009. The adventure has begun. So far, it has entailed lots of reading and thinking about nursing. Right now, I don't really think like a nurse, but I am working on it. I hear nurses tell stories about saving (or not saving) people's lives, and I think to myself How did they know what to do? For example, my professor told us a story today about working in the emergency room. A kid came in with normal vital signs and she calmly redirected his mother, and as she wheeled him to a bed told another nurse to call a trauma code. Sure enough, the kid had a ruptured spleen and she saved his life. I keep hearing stories like this. Things seem somewhat normal to an ordinary observer, but the nurse knows that the patient's heart is about to stop beating. How do they do that??!!?!?!?! I guess it all comes with experience, and one day I will have that experience too. Just watch out, someday I may start calling 911 while we are having a normal conversation because I know you are about to need an ambulance. It's like Angela Landsbury and murder mysteries. I expect life as a nurse to be solving medical catastrophes all around me.

I have also been thinking about Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink. Experts have subconcious, intuitive knowledge that they trust. They know that something is wrong before they can explain why. I think nurses are like that. By the way, I really recommend reading that book. It's very thought provoking and you may want to quote it at parties or something. At least, I do.

Molly Elliott took this wonderful picture of me on my first day of nursing skills lab. You can look at her pictures on http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyelliott/