Fellowshipping: Month 2

My second month is pretty much done, and I'm starting my third month in neurosurgery tomorrow. I feel like I've grown a lot as a provider in just this short time. In this last month, I've learned to work smarter with my time. I've learned to chart review on patients I will be seeing on the outpatient side to make the clinic flow more smoothly the day of. It was tough initially because I would chart review for the clinic the night before after having worked a shift. Over the month, I have learned to chart review at least a week ahead of time (and try to maintain it that way). It has been really helpful for me as I try to maintain some work-life balance. There is so much I've learned, and so much I will continue to learn in the remainder of my time as a fellow.

Completed month two and attended ENLS course

This past month, I've continued to work in the outpatient cranial-side setting with the pediatric population. Unlike adults, where the clinic is split between the cranial side and the spine side, the clinic is run altogether for the kids and there are developmental milestones to consider. A good thing though (as my mentor reminds me) is that kids are typically not as sick as adults. On the inpatient side, I've branched out and have seen both adults and kids.

For the last two weeks, I started adding on seeing adult patients with neurovascular conditions. This new subspecialty has been a learning experience, once again, but the surgeries make more sense since it reminds me of some cardiac conditions. If you're new to my blog, most of my nursing experience is in the cardiac sector (stroke/tele, cardiac surgery stepdown, med-surg/tele), so the vascular things make sense. I just need to review my brain anatomy and learn to think in terms of the brain.

Conditions/medical terms I've learned about so far:

• Shone syndrome
• Crouzon syndrome
• Spasticity
• Apoplexy
• Torticollis
• Cranial index measurements
• Cranial Aneurysm

Surgeries I've learned about/reviewed so far:

• Hemispherectomy
• Aneurysm Clipping
• Aneurysm Coiling

Other little exciting things/firsts:

• Received my first official white coat/lab coat
• Received my first official script pads

Nicole G.
@nextwithnicole // @nursenicoleg