ADVENTURES IN NURSING

MRS. B-2

B-2 was much more laid back as a classroom instructor than her counterpart.  Most of the time, this was a good thing.  Sometimes, though, it resulted in long, boring discussions as she attempted to justify why she wasn’t going to change someone’s quiz or test grade.  There was always some student who was willing to engage B-2 in this futile attempt.  One had to wonder if the student was doing it purposely just to fill up the time B-2 should have been teaching us something ... anything!

She had some fascinating stories to tell.  She had begun her career as a nursing assistant, became an LPN, went on to get her RN, and then her Master’s so that she could teach.  She was fond of telling us how she had once weighed 300 pounds, and then became “half the woman she was back then.”  She taught us that a 150-pound woman, if she used proper body mechanics, could transfer a 300-pound man from bed to chair without assistance.  I personally never tested her assertion.  Maybe Hoyer lifts weren’t around in her nursing assistant days.

I’ve never forgotten a story she told us one Monday morning.  She was “parrot-sitting” for a friend the previous weekend, and was cleaning out his cage before the owner came to pick him up.  She opened the cage door and allowed the bird to fly out for a little “free time” during the chore.  Unfortunately, she had forgotten that her ceiling fan was on.  Yep, you guessed it.  The poor parrot flew immediately into the fan, and parrot parts went flying hither and yon all over the room.  I’ll never be able to erase the image I get from that incident from my brain. 

B-2’s flightiness worked in my favor one day.  Remember the injection test I failed?  My second test was supervised by B-2.  I was a nervous wreck, knowing this was my last chance to get signed off on it or I wouldn’t be going to first-year clinicals, which would have opened up a whole big old can of worms.  I swabbed the mannequin’s arm and remembered to leave the swab in place.  I took the cap off the needle and by this point, my hands were shaking so badly, I immediately dropped the syringe on the floor. 

As luck would have it, Mrs. B-2 had been distracted by another instructor in the room, and didn’t even notice when I quickly bent over, swooped up the syringe, and returned to a standing position before she turned back around to observe.  At least I think that was the case.  Either way, she didn’t mention it and I wasn’t about to.  I proceeded with the injection and BOOM, just like that, I had passed.  My knees went weak, I tell ya.  Just for the record, a future clinical instructor told me that I gave the best IM injections she had ever seen from a student.  I just needed to get past that terrifying test.

While B-2 could get quite monotonous at times, she did make more of an effort to be friendly than B-1, who preferred to keep things business-like most of the time.  She also got quite the kick out of seeing cute hunky married guy blush, which he did quite often.  Of course, the rest of us got quite the kick out of that, too.  He was just so easily embarrassed.

Another incident involving B-2 was when four of us reported to her that we had seen a particular high-schooler cheating on quizzes.  She wasn’t all that good at being sneaky about.  In fact, she was actually quite obvious about it.  B and I both saw it, and a couple of the other students asked us about it.  That’s when we decided to report it.  We were told early on in the program that we were obligated to report such things, so we went as a group to inform Mrs. B-2. 

Just a few days later, after I had finished that day’s quiz, I noticed the student glancing at her neighbor’s paper once again, and at that moment B-2 happened to look up and notice what was going on.  The student was out of the program the next day.  Cheating is a major infraction in any situation in the real world.  I felt badly for the student, but that behavior was unacceptable.  If you have to cheat to get through the program, then chances are good that you’re not going to be a good nurse.

NEXT UP:  MRS. GIGGLES