It is hard to believe that I have been here in Saudi Arabia for a week. In some ways it feels like I have been here a short while and in other ways it feels like I have been here forever. Today is day 3 of teaching. Saturday and Sunday we taught NRP. When we teach this class back home it is a 4-hour course and the students take the online test before coming to the class. Because very few of the staff have ever taken NRP, we are including almost 12 hours of lecturing, practicing skills involved with resuscitation, reviewing test questions and skills in how to take a test online. The final 4 hours is used to take the test. This is quite challenging as English is their second language for all of them and we are teaching in English and the test is in English. They don't understand what the question means, so we as instructors we have to be available to help clarify the questions so they can answer it without us giving them the answer. Also some of them are very unfamiliar with computers. I am very pleased that all 16 passed all 9 parts of the test. It was fun to see the look on their face when they completed the first test and passed. They were so hesitant to hit the SUBMIT button, because they were afraid that they were going to fail. They were very pleased with themselves when it said that they had passed the test and then it gave them confidence to keep going as they were very intimidated about having to take the test and know that the pressure to pass was extremely high. Then today we taught our STABLE class which is the stabilization of the neonate after resuscitation. STABLE stands for Sugar, Temperature, Airway, Blood Pressure, Labs and Emotional Support. I think it was a success as the students were asking how they could get their own copies of the book. To me that means that they saw the importance of this class and that they want to be able to review. Another success. Now we have to work on them with putting into practice at the bedside what they have learned in the classroom. We start our second NRP class tomorrow and then next week we have 2 more sessions to do.
In some ways the hospital itself and some of the practices that are done remind me of how we did things when I first started working in the NICU many years ago. But yet they are doing some practices that are similar to what we are doing in Minneapolis. Equipment is another story. They have several brands of different pieces of equipment that do the same thing. I would find it quite confusing. At some bedsides they may have 3 IV pumps and all 3 pumps are different. At Children's we have one brand for each type of equipment that we use. They also right now have a huge nursing shortage which is quite challenging for them. There will be 9 new nurses starting in the next couple of weeks.
It feels somewhat overwhelming as there are so many things that they need to work on and we are only here for another 12 days. We want to leave them with the ability to continue on after we are gone. Otherwise our purpose in being here was for nothing. Hopefully we can enpower them to continue to make changes. It is kind of like the saying: how do you eat an elephant? ............One bite at a time. They have been very receptive to what we have to offer and seem to take our suggestions well. Their MD that is in charge of all pediatrics is a very positive influence and is very excited about the things that we have been implementing. Our neonatolgist from Minneapolis will be arriving on Friday and we are hoping that once he is here he can have more of an impact on the doctors. We have made friends amongst the staff and hopefully have make some positive changes in the right direction.
At this point if you asked me if I would come back I would say yes. There are a few things that might need to change but overall this has been a positive experience, especially in the hospital with the staff.
Thanks for reading my blog as well as all of your support.
In some ways the hospital itself and some of the practices that are done remind me of how we did things when I first started working in the NICU many years ago. But yet they are doing some practices that are similar to what we are doing in Minneapolis. Equipment is another story. They have several brands of different pieces of equipment that do the same thing. I would find it quite confusing. At some bedsides they may have 3 IV pumps and all 3 pumps are different. At Children's we have one brand for each type of equipment that we use. They also right now have a huge nursing shortage which is quite challenging for them. There will be 9 new nurses starting in the next couple of weeks.
It feels somewhat overwhelming as there are so many things that they need to work on and we are only here for another 12 days. We want to leave them with the ability to continue on after we are gone. Otherwise our purpose in being here was for nothing. Hopefully we can enpower them to continue to make changes. It is kind of like the saying: how do you eat an elephant? ............One bite at a time. They have been very receptive to what we have to offer and seem to take our suggestions well. Their MD that is in charge of all pediatrics is a very positive influence and is very excited about the things that we have been implementing. Our neonatolgist from Minneapolis will be arriving on Friday and we are hoping that once he is here he can have more of an impact on the doctors. We have made friends amongst the staff and hopefully have make some positive changes in the right direction.
At this point if you asked me if I would come back I would say yes. There are a few things that might need to change but overall this has been a positive experience, especially in the hospital with the staff.
Thanks for reading my blog as well as all of your support.
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