The first day I went I was there for an hour and a half. I only saw 2 patients. The first patient was a lady with venous ulcers. They unwrapped the previous bandaged took some measurements and a picture to track the healing process then they cleaned the wound and re dressed it. The nurses used 3 types of compression wraps. They said this is important because if they don’t compress they will get a huge swelling lump that will look like a mushroom and hang over the bandage. This is because the patients with the venous ulcers have poor circulation and the blood will just stagnate in the area. The second patient I saw was an elderly man with a severe bed sore on his butt and on his heels. This was the worst wound I had saw during my time. He had exposed bone and the sore was 6 cm deep. The patient says he lays in bed all day alone. The only time he gets out of the bed is when his daughter comes by about once a day. I wasn’t able to stay to watch them dress this wound.
The second time I went I was there for 5 and a half hours, so I was able to see many patients. The first patient I saw was a lady who was missing the tip of her great toe. She said she was unsure of how it happened, but it happened while she was in the Virgin Islands. She received treatment there before she flew home to get treatment at JMH. This was the strangest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. She wasn’t missing any bone, she was just missing the fatty tip of her toe, but bone was exposed. The nurse suspected some kind of bone infection. The nurse and the doctor were struggling with this lady’s paper work. It seemed like she had a lot of strange treatments that didn’t make sense. They talked about how she is a good candidate for the hyperbaric chamber and they recommended getting her in as soon as possible, along with another treatment to help the bone inflection. However, this lady wanted to postpone all these treatments for a week later because she wanted to go back to the virgin island to finish her vacation. Needless to say, the doctor and nurse were not very happy. Eventually, they cleaned and dressed her toe and sent her down stairs for other testing. Next I saw 2 more venous ulcers. They did the same thing as when I saw them on the first day. I also saw a diabetic foot which was healed. They just trimmed the callus off the patient’s foot. Finally, the last thing I saw was a pediatric bed sore on a disabled child. This was an interesting case. It was a 12-year-old boy who had just finished getting hip replacement surgery because his hips kept dislocating. For some strange reason he had developed bed sores on his legs and heel. They suspect it is because of some kind of medication they had him on. The parents seemed to take really good care of the boy so it was definitely not from just lying in bed all the time. This was the first time this family was in the wound care center so they had to do extensive documentation. Eventually after getting all the information they needed, they cleaned his sores and lightly dressed him.
Overall, I thought everything was interesting. However, this opportunity to observe truly only showed me that I do not want to work in that kind of setting. More power to those Nurses and Doctors who do it every day, but it’s not the job for me.
The second time I went I was there for 5 and a half hours, so I was able to see many patients. The first patient I saw was a lady who was missing the tip of her great toe. She said she was unsure of how it happened, but it happened while she was in the Virgin Islands. She received treatment there before she flew home to get treatment at JMH. This was the strangest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. She wasn’t missing any bone, she was just missing the fatty tip of her toe, but bone was exposed. The nurse suspected some kind of bone infection. The nurse and the doctor were struggling with this lady’s paper work. It seemed like she had a lot of strange treatments that didn’t make sense. They talked about how she is a good candidate for the hyperbaric chamber and they recommended getting her in as soon as possible, along with another treatment to help the bone inflection. However, this lady wanted to postpone all these treatments for a week later because she wanted to go back to the virgin island to finish her vacation. Needless to say, the doctor and nurse were not very happy. Eventually, they cleaned and dressed her toe and sent her down stairs for other testing. Next I saw 2 more venous ulcers. They did the same thing as when I saw them on the first day. I also saw a diabetic foot which was healed. They just trimmed the callus off the patient’s foot. Finally, the last thing I saw was a pediatric bed sore on a disabled child. This was an interesting case. It was a 12-year-old boy who had just finished getting hip replacement surgery because his hips kept dislocating. For some strange reason he had developed bed sores on his legs and heel. They suspect it is because of some kind of medication they had him on. The parents seemed to take really good care of the boy so it was definitely not from just lying in bed all the time. This was the first time this family was in the wound care center so they had to do extensive documentation. Eventually after getting all the information they needed, they cleaned his sores and lightly dressed him.
Overall, I thought everything was interesting. However, this opportunity to observe truly only showed me that I do not want to work in that kind of setting. More power to those Nurses and Doctors who do it every day, but it’s not the job for me.