Awkward Moments

Last week the new semester of school started off with a ton of work.  How often do you finish the first day of a semester and realize you're already a couple hundred pages and a few hours of instructional videos behind?

And then there was the hygiene lab...


(y'all, I'm so scared about the kind of search term traffic this post is going to drive to my blog!)

You know you're a nursing student when you watch two different instructional videos and then have a conversation in a public place about the fact that the video failed to zoom in on the key area (in this case a penis) so that we really knew the difference between the videos and what to do in each situation.

There was the instructor who couldn't bring herself to use anatomically correct terms.  Yep.  A professional.  Can I just say that the already awkward situation was made that much worse by the use of the term "Mr. Happy"?

Or the hand motions in place of the word "breast" when discussing the hygiene needs of elderly ladies.

Or the demonstration and discussion about foreskins, using a surgical glove with a cut off finger tip.

More than that, there was the hilarious laughter and conversations that came from sharing the learning later that day with good friends. And later in the week with family.

Before the lab arrived, I was pretty much horrified.  The whole virgin thing means that, well, I'm not exactly acquainted with a man's intimate anatomy. I expected to blush through the entire lab, and couldn't picture having to care for a patient in that way.

After everything that went on in the learning process, I'm not even embarrassed about the craziness of the lab anymore.  Right now I'm totally amused.

I know I can be professional when that situation calls for it.

From other experiences in my life, I can empathize about the vulnerability of being in that position, and needing that sort of care, and I intend to use that empathy when I care for patients facing that sort of vulnerability.

But the experience of learning how to care for patients in those situations?  I think that might always make me laugh.