🩺🩸The CSICU || A Day in The Life🩸🩺

DarkoStojanovic / Pixabay

Hey guys! Welcome back for another PGP related post! Yes this is in fact the highly anticipated post all about take your kid to work day. I was so excited for this entire experience and the project that went along with the activities was entirely enjoyable. I know that probably sounded rather sarcastic depending on how you read it but in all honesty I enjoyed the whole process. So what exactly is take your kid to work day? Every year since 1994 take your kid to work day has been a huge part of career education in secondary schools across Canada. The day, this year on November 6th, entails students going to their parents or family members workplace and shadowing them in a days work. I was lucky enough to accompany my aunt for the day at the Royal Columbia Hospital where she works as a CSICU nurse. My real challenge was to create a video and write an outstanding post about my expertise all the while answering some very important questions that we’ll get to soon enough.

    My day stared off way to early. I identify as a night owl and definitely not an early bird. Getting up before 6am did not appeal to me but as I was challenging myself to really try to live like a hospital employee for the day, I had to suck it up and somehow stay awake for the entire day. Arriving at the hospital was really fun because I got to put on a set of scrubs and walk into the CSICU for the first time. Incase you were wondering, CSICU stands for cardio surgery intensive care unit and it’s basically where all cardio surgery patients go to recover before being transferred to the general ward. At first being there was a little overwhelming but after I started to feel comfortable I turned right back into myself and began asking many, many questions. Next up was a hospital tour in which I saw some of the bigger departments that make the hospital run as smoothly as it does. In doing so I started to think about how the way people represent themselves within the workplace affects the way the hospital runs altogether. When we went through Respiratory Therapy, our RT presenter talked about how she thought RT’s were represented in the hospital. She mentioned that employees from other wards sometimes think of them as the firefighters of the hospital. They are there to monitor the breathing of each patient and they swoop in whenever goes wrong and evidently save the day. I started to wonder how the other parts of the hospital saw themselves and how the defined the contribution they made to the wellbeing of their patients. 

https://youtu.be/A9x41N1IBA0

   Later on I asked my aunt about the rules revolving around confidentiality and liability and due to the strict rules I was not allowed to get any recordings of an any employees. This threw one heck of a wrench into my plans, especially considering that I needed to get an interview for my video. But coming prepared was an important piece of this project so I ran an alternative interview with a cardio surgeon from my aunts department.

In the interview I posed th question, “how do you think the different roles throughout the hospital impact the needs of the patients and the community?” His response was certainly a great way of representing his thoughts on the subject. “I believe that a hospital, like this one runs like a machine. Without all its parts and bits and pieces it can’t operate smoothly. If we didn’t have the lab, we couldn’t identify the problem. Without the doctors and nurses in their respective specialities we can’t fix those problems. And without the nurses, like your aunt, we couldn’t help our patients recover in full. For the impact on the community part, I guess you could say that the patients, the people that we treat are a part of our community and the impacts we have on their lives, have a kind of ripple effect.” My next question was referring to his decision to continue on the path of becoming a cardiovascular surgeon. I asked, “did you come into this specific field of medicine due to personal passion or another driving force?” He once again, had a strong response. “Well, in the beginning it was all a personal decision but once I reached the end of my residency I’d stared a family and I think that played a role in my choice to continue in surgery. Going into cardio was more or less based on  what I was good at and how much I enjoyed it.”

sasint / Pixabay

Shadowing my aunt was one thing, and it was really interesting to see what a day in the CSICU looks like but the real outcome of the experience was the insight on the working parts of any workplace. I learned from seeing the behind the scenes parts of the hospital that each and every department plays a role in every single patients care and wellbeing. I learned a lot from my interview with the cardio surgeon, who I was honoured to call Dr. Bob. (Yes that is what his co-workers call him). Later on while I was beginning to structure my video I came to the conclusion that it is the roles that every employee within a workplace plays that go towards the overall success of the business, company, or facility. A hospital could not run without the lab pathologists, OR nurses, or first responders and just like any other workplace it’s the way that those who do each job see themselves that makes an even larger impact.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk

✌️Ciara

Ciara

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