For Discovery Term, I will be shadowing doctors and nurse practitioners at Duke, more specifically, in the cord blood and bone marrow transplant department.
Today, I started my day in the Children’s Health Center. There, I was able to visit with four patients, two of whom were post-transplant. I was able to learn what factors determine a patient is doing well and what to look out for. I also learned that many of these patients came from very far away. Hygiene was very important. Because many of the children I saw in the hospital had compromised immune systems, hand sanitizer or hand washing was a must each and every time I entered and exited a room.
However, I learned that the paperwork that doctors and nurses did is just as important as seeing the patients. During downtime, I was able to learn how to read lab results and what chemicals indicate the function of each organ. I was able to see how different medicines affected the amount of different chemicals in the patient’s system and how the lab results would indicate whether the concentration was high or low. Many of the patients didn’t have all normal levels because of the various medicines that they were taking. Overall, today was a huge change in perspective for me. While I had always been on the patient side of things, I now have had the chance to experience the staff perspective.
