Lovelace Hospital

I just finished my first week at Lovelace Hospital.  It was slightly overwhelming as I am used to practicing out of a small, private outpatient orthopedic setting.  My first travel assignment in Rumford was also in an outpatient setting at a small hospital.  Fast forward from August to September and I am in a whole new world at Lovelace Hospital in Albuquerque, NM.  First of all, Lovelace is in the heart of the city.  To get to work, I have gone from biking on a single lane road to fighting 6 lanes of traffic (as I mentioned previously, a blinker is merely a flashing light here!).  Although, I must admit this has improved my defensive driving skills tremendously!

Lovelace

Lovelace Hospital is a ten floor acute care hospital.  The floors include: Neuro, ICU, telemetry, oncology, behavioral health, cardiac, ortho and a general floor that patients go to before being discharged.  I have had to become oriented with all of the floors, but have mostly been working on telemetry and neuro until the position on the ortho floor opens up in two weeks.  I have learned a lot having to treat all of the different specialties but have been most surprised by the amount of equipment patients are on.   I have to carry a portable telemetry box and notify a group of people watching monitors two floors down when I switch patients from the main telemetry to the portable when walking them.  At first, I was a little freaked out by all of the equipment but soon realized as long as I carefully monitor them before unplugging anything and plug patients back in when we return it is OK! I was only oriented to the neuro floor so I have had to learn a lot on my own, but luckily I work with a very helpful group of therapists! The behavioral health floor has been interesting.  I had to learn how to use many different types of restraints as some of these patients are in isolation and are restrained.  I work with 6 other travel PT's from all across the U.S. along with permanant PT's so it has been nice having other people new to the area to explore with!