I think the appropriate title is, "What Goes Through My Patients' Mind"
By that means, it's about my internship (as a student nurse). So since sophomore yr of exposure to different hospitals/clinics, I began to question myself 'what goes through my patients' minds?'. Since my title is 'in labor', it doesn't mean labor like a job where you get paid but it means a mother who is in her last stage before expelling her child out.
So there was this scene where 6 of us were monitoring a couple of patients inside the labor room. While checking the vital signs, I saw the look on my patient's face like she went 'are all of them seriously gonna come here just to check my vital signs?!' I can tell that she was a lil pissed by the look on her face but I ignored it. The 2nd time I checked her vital signs, she turned her back on me. I approached her very nicely (even though I already knew her mood) and she finally turned to me and said 'hurry up, I'm trying to rest!' I rushed things up, I didn't even care if I was doing the procedure correctly but all I cared about was my patient's mood.
I went to our room and played with my psp for awhile. I was asking myself 'did I do something wrong? Or should I normally expect this from my patients?' I tried to remember everything I did from my shift but I couldn't remember one thing that would offend her. So I kept thinking that if I should expect this from my patients, then there must be atleast a reason for their behavior whether it could be psychological, physical, mental or social stress. So I went inside and confronted her. I asked her nicely about the whole situation and her mood and she went calm and said 'I'm not mad, I'm just not comftable.' I didn't ask her why but she voluntarily told me 'whenever you guys are around, I feel like my privacy is being invaded. I couldn't even look straight at you because of the fact that I'm in a situation like this and couldn't do anything but to cooperate with you. Whenever you take that BP cuff or thermometer, and your classmates are staring at me, I feel like there's something wrong with me. Can't you're teacher assign somebody who'll monitor me? Just one person. I'm gonna be fine with it!'
By the way, we were in a public hospital. Perfect timing though, we were about to end our shift. I told her, 'OK maam, I'll do something about it. If there's anything else that bothers you, please tell me/us. We won't mind. That's our job' and gave her a smile. I don't know if that set her happy mood up but atleast I know what went through her mind, to our patients' minds in general. I totally understand her. If I were in her position and people/students are staring at me, I would get absolutely uncomftable. I don't like being watched or stared or touched by anybody unless you're a professional. That's just me and I'm pretty sure my patients have the same feelings too. It's just that sometimes.. They don't have a choice.
