Vagina Camp

This week I am at what is affectionately known amongst my school peers as "vagina camp" or "pap camp." It is a required part of our training to be nurse-midwives or nurse practitioners (similar but different educational pathways).

In order to attend what is really known as Clinical Bound or CB, we have to be done with didactic portion of our program. Then we attend this week long intensive training of our clinical skills before we start training with preceptors.

While we are here we actually do all the coursework for two full classes. Well, actually we have to do prep work before we come too.

So we are expected to come with the knowledge of how to do a more thorough than you have probably ever had done physical exam. It is broken into parts that we need to know inside and out. The first full day we are here (yesterday) we spend the entire day practicing and getting tips and trying to master our skills. Then on day 2 (today) we test out on our physical exam skills in the morning. We each have partners and we had to sign up for a time slot yesterday. We also are assigned a faculty member.

My partner and I were terrified of our faculty member. To make matters worse stressed by the knowledge that if you fail, you have one chance to retest and if you fail again, you are sent home. No pressure or anything since it would mean new plane tickets and a ride out of here. Have I mentioned that I am literally on the side of a mountain in town so small it doesn't even have a McDonald's? Doesn't McDonalds have a restaurant every 6 blocks in the US?...not here. I think there is a dollar store, a Dairy Queen, a subway and a gas station. There might be a few more things but that is really about it.

Oh ya, assessments...So my test out was for 9:15 this morning. I was allowed 15 minutes to perform whatever random physical assessment combination I drew. If you have time at the end of your assessment you are allowed one minute to look at your note cards to see if you missed anything and that's about it.

So my roommate/partner and I practiced all yesterday until we literally couldn't function anymore. Then we took some time to decompress in the later evening and I got violently ill. I had been nauseated for a few hours and had taken 8 mg Zofran and then I tried some Compazine, but it never had enough time to take effect. A few hours later I felt much better and crawled into bed.

We were back up and practicing in the safety of our room at 6am today. We did go to breakfast and I took a quick shower but other than that we practiced right up until 9am. Then we headed off like we were going to our own hangings.

In the end it went fine. We both passed. I was thrilled when I drew my card bc even though I had 6 different assessments to perform, 2 of them were cardiac. The two assessments that I was most confident of. I also head head/face, neck, ears, and neck veins. It really wouldn't have mattered what those last four were because I knew I was ok when I saw cardiac.

After we were done we had a short break, then a library session, and lunch. Then this afternoon we learned about doing breast exams, microscopic slides, and pelvic exams. It was pretty fun.

The hardest part for me is how close some of this hits to home right now. People here care and are amazing, but at times I feel like everyone is thinking "ya ya we know you have cervical cancer." Inevitably I talk about it more than I ever plan on, but it's just always right there and so relevant to all we are doing. There are so many things I want to say and so many things I want to tell my instructors and classmates about "doing this" or "don't do this" because of my unique perspective as the patient we are studying to take care of, but usually there just isn't enough time.

Instead I say a few things and hold the rest in. It's all part of the learning process though. I need to learn to "zip it" now because soon enough I wont be at vagina camp, and instead of classmates, I'm actually going to have real patients. That is what is really scary!