Candace Tong

Clinical Experience

Who would have known that things would have change in a blink of an eye? We have all been

affected by the Coronavirus and everyday life is far from normal. Beginning my last semester

was a big sigh of relief, because I know that things are coming to an end but, moving into the

virtual world as a nursing student made things quite interesting, I must say. Leadership is the

course most of us look forward to because we have all heard about those 12hours shift

rotations, being on ICU, critical care units, and even the emergency room was something to

look forward to. However, due to the recent changes my clinical experience has been much

different. Miami Dade has partnered with iHuman a virtual hospital and that provides several

patients with an array of illnesses we can work with and learn from.

The iHuman learning system is geared towards using evidence-based practice that allows us

to use the same tools that we would in a normal hospital setting. It has helped me in numerous

ways and challenge me to use my critical thinking skills to find what is best for the patient. This

learning system has taught me to prioritize, and know which intervention are deemed STAT,

urgent, and routine. One of my weaknesses were learning how to prioritize nursing

interventions and to properly caring for the patient in a timely manner.

During my clinical I learned how to use my assessment skills and focus my assessment on the

problem at hand. For example, if my patient was bought in with hypotension, tachycardia, and

dry mucous membranes I would focus my attention on the patient being dehydrated. I know

that from evidence-based practice the patient needs fluid replacement to help with the loss of
fluid volume until further test has been done to rule out any other causes . Also, the patient

needs to be on fall precautions because they can experience orthostatic hypotension when

getting up from a lying position which pose as a risk for safety.

I also learned a lot about mental health and how to help treat these patients during an acute

onset of symptoms. Whether the patient is anxious or experiencing an acute episode of mania

the priority for these patients is to decrease stimuli surrounding them. For a patient suffering

from a panic attack it is best to stay with the patient and assure them that they are in a safe

place and that you are here to help them. And then you have patients who suffer from mental

illnesses such as bipolar type 1 or 2 that can experience episodes of mania and depression for

long periods of time. During a manic attack I learned that decreasing the stimuli around the

patient can help because it gives them less energy to feed off of. Also, these patients use a lot

of energy during a manic phase and it is important to provide snacks and finger foods and fluids

to keep them from becoming dehydrated and lack of nutritious meals.

Overall, I must say that this was a learning experience that I will not forget and that I am

grateful for. This program allowed me to learn from my mistakes and showed me my

weaknesses and my strength so I can build off of that and apply it in the future. I know that the

changes we endured was unexpected and sudden, but we made the best out of the resources

that were provided to us. This clinical experience has helped me with assessing, organizing, and

patient charting something that I will use for the rest of my career as a nurse.