My horrific clinic life as a student nurse

The doctor wasn’t in his office when I got there. There were already many people sitting in the waiting room.

Soon the doctor came into the office. The bottom of his white gown streamed behind him with his pace.

He saw me and said, “Hey, you. I know you haven’t gotten used to being here yet, but hang in there, ok?”

I said, “I’ll do my best, doctor,” and I thought maybe this doctor can be kind and I was a little relieved.

But (of course) that was just another big mistake of mine and it didn’t take so long to realize that everyone in the office was so tense because of him.

I thought I just needed to observe what the other nurses were doing and learn from them…well, at least that was what I thought at first, but no one seemed to care if it was my very first day or not. I was very nervous.

The fist visitor was a three-year-old boy who was with his mother. She explained that he had fallen down and hit his forehead. There was a cut from a stone or something.

The wound was about 2 centimeters and already covered with a scab.

The doctor said to a nurse, “Tweezers.”  The nurse brought a pair of tweezers which were about 15 centimeters long.

It happened in a second. I wanted to faint, but I was very awake.

The doctor placed the tweezers on the scab and then opened the boy’s wound. Fresh blood began to pour out.

Of course the boy was crying like he was fire and tried to move his head away from the doctor and his tweezers.

The doctor told the boy’s mother to hold the boy’s head tightly and he began to wash the wound with saline water, I think.

I really wanted to escape from the office. The boy received 100% of my sympathy. He was crying so hard that he almost threw up. Oh, God, please let me get out of this room, I prayed.

But of course there was no way that I could hide somewhere else so I just stood up there pretending I wasn’t even there.

Then the doctor told the mother to lay the boy down on the treatment bed.

I had no idea that the real frightening part was about to begin.

The doctor told me to hold the boy’s legs. I thought, ”Me? You want me to hold the boy’s legs? I don’t think I can.” For a moment, I couldn’t move.

Then the doctor yelled at me, “What are you deaf? I told you to hold his legs. Do as I said!”

Now my fright turned to real fear.

I timidly held the boy’s legs, but to the boy, this situation must have seem like a dividing line as to whether he would live or die.

So he kept kicking me so that he could escape from the bed.

I added more power on his legs, holding them with my hands with all of my weight behind them.

The doctor injected a local anesthesia into the wound and the boy now really started screaming with gallons of tears. (I still get goosebumps imagining it.)

Then the doctor picked a circular needle attached to a string and stuck the needle into the wound.

My heart had never beated that fast before and I was apologizing to the boy many times in my head.

It wasn’t me who was giving him such pain, but I felt so guilty.

The treatment was finally done and I felt like I would faint immediately.

But the next patient was already sitting in front of the doctor’s chair waiting to talk to him.

My long day wouldn’t end so easily, I thought.

To be continued…