Extra Blog 2

So far the mentorship has been great. I've met a lot of new people and lots of different doctors and nurses. My jobs have changed slightly in that I get to change and clean the patients telemetry meters. Telemetry meters motor for any abnormal heart fluctuation and are defined as v-tack or ventricle tachycardia. Last Tuesday though, I received my mentor, Oralia Aragon NP, and I followed her literally everywhere to check on patients who had heart problems. She talked me through what they do and different jobs she has then at the end of the day, she had me look at angiograms and spot the clots and legions. It was really easy yet very hard since your looking at a screen of a heart in an x-ray with dye going through the heart'veins looking for clots. The difficulty is that the veins are less then a centimeter thick and the clots are white while the vein is black. Sounds easy, right? Try looking for them as the heart beats at abnormally fast rates, trying to get blood evenly throughout the heart. It was challenging but I loved it. The cool thing is that I saw the results and diagnostics of the angiogram with all of the locations of the clots and I was completely right. Cant wait for next Tuesday!!

Blog 6: Second Interview

1. My mentor's name is Aurelia Aurora NP. She works at Keck Medical Center of USC.

2. What kind of training or background is necessary for this type of work?
How did you get this career, and what kinds of experiences and preparation helped the most? 
What are the responsibilities in this position? 
What kind of changes, do you see coming, in this line of work? 
What personal qualities or abilities, are important for doing well in this kind of work?

Blog 5 Project Reflection and Working EQ

The Pentagon:

1. The most positive and self fulfilling thing I've done so far is secure a position as a volunteer at Keck Medical Center of USC. I get to work hand in hand with nurses and doctors creating a great environment for the development of my topic and EQ.

EQ Content:

2. My first interview was with a nurse practitioner who knew a lot about the field of cardiology. A tip she gave me was that cardiology is not just one thing. It involves the whole body so focusing on cardiology is too vague and that i should get specific by either looking for a certain common procedure. I thought that would be very interesting so now I'm looking into surgical procedures in cardiology. 

3. I think the thing that has worked so far in my senior project would be my volunteering at Keck Medical. I have the possible opportunity to get a very helpful mentor.

4. I think the thing that hasn't worked so far would be the deciding of how to create my true topic and finding research and things as specific as, for example, angioplasty.

Finding Value:

-What makes a angioplasty surgery go successful?

-I plan on finding a mentor and having them teach me the basics of angioplasty and hopefully allow me to do sit ins during surgeries. I don't have a mentor but I've been talking to the nurse practitioner of the cardiology department, Orelia  Aurora, to help me find a mentor. It will most likely be a resident.

Mentorship So Far...

So my mentorship has been going great at Keck Medical Center at USC. I've helped so many patients and nurses and even the doctors. My first day, August 13, was so confusing. I answered phone calls and transferred them to their desired receivers. I discharged a patient who had a open heart surgery and translated in Spanish for two kidney doctors for a patient on dialysis. My schedule is every Tuesday 2-6pm every week and I hope i can get more days and longer shifts. The most interesting thing I've done by far was feed a patient. Vernon McDonald is blind in his right eye and has 20% vision in his left eye. He's had a quadruple heart bypass and has had his feet amputated due to diabetes. As I was feeding him, he talked about his life and how he lived. He was a stove maker in the City of Industry. It was a cool experience because he opened up and was comfortable with me. I feel that comfort is key in this business, that and communication.