A Day In the Life Of.... Snapshots of Nursing Here

Checking In Patients at the Clinic

I slide the key into the lock of the back door of the clinic and my day begins. I walk down the hallway past the x-ray machine, the treatment room and the lab, the pharmacy and front desk into the break room where morning devotions start at 8:00. We sing and pray and I’m surrounded by the faces of missionaries and Papua New Guineans alike, all of us unified in our love for Christ and desire to serve Him with the work of this clinic in the lives of those in or around the center. 8:30 arrives and we all scatter to our various tasks. Today I will work in the lab in the morning and as an appointment nurse in the afternoon.

    I switch on the light and run my hand over the cool black countertops in the lab as I turn on machines and prepare the lab for the day. I slip on my lab coat and busy myself with refreshing the bleach, running quality control on various machines and getting everything set up for my morning. The first customer arrives, lab slip in hand and the morning starts in earnest. For the next few hours I draw blood, run various tests and kits, look at samples under microscopes and record results. Although it may sound tedious, I have to say that this is one of my favorite jobs. I love the pure, nerdy science of working in the lab. From the identification of things on microscope slides to the understanding of why different results are found in tests I love the learning and hands-on aspect of the lab. Soon, the 1200 horn sounds and I hang up my lab coat for the day.

After lunch break I return to the clinic for an afternoon of work. Depending on the day I may come back to work as an office nurse, an appointment nurse or a vaccine nurse. An office nurse is a nurse who checks in patients for the doctors, fills medication orders for the doctors and answers email and phone questions from patients in the community. The vaccine nurse’s job is to review vaccine records for patients, recommend needed vaccines and to administer those vaccines while answering any questions or concerns they may have. Finally, an appointment nurse acts, for all intents and purposes, like a nurse practitioner. When I work as an appointment nurse I do everything for the patient from start to finish. I take vital signs, hear what their complaint is, do an assessment, order needed labs or scans, determine what I believe their diagnosis to be and order treatment for their condition accordingly. In between doing any one of these nursing roles I’m generally working on helping fill medication orders in the pharmacy and/or serving in the other roles I have in the clinic including the role of main vaccine nurse and updating our new nurse training materials.

Every day is an adventure and today is no exception. I get a call. Someone has hurt their toes and are concerned they may be broken, can they come in? I have them come in and I take some x-rays. Nope, they’re not broken. I give some instructions and send them on their way. I see two or three other patients for various ailments: an earache here, a strange rash there, a fever that spiked this morning, and the list goes on. By the end of the day I close the last chart with satisfaction. God has helped me through another day and I am content. He is so good to let me be in this place, doing what I love. I love being a nurse and using that to share the love of Christ in word and deed. What will tomorrow bring? I don’t know, but I do know that God has each one of my days in His hand and that can only be good.