By Susan and Brian Zeller
Wowie Zowie! This group has been going non-stop. They looked a wee bit tired this morning, but quickly perked when they went out the door into the typical Manchester summer day – gray skies, rain and hard winds.
The cardiac rehab student headed out on some eye-opening home visits. They seemed amazed by the level of illness handled in the outpatient environment and lack of ability to get appointments.
The nursing group headed back to Salford Royal Hospital for the second day of clinicals. They were able to observe all sorts of hospital events, including bronchoscopies, PICC lines, ulcerations, assessments and the use of disposable urinals (not sure how we feel about that one!). There were several astute observations. Most patients don’t wear hospital gowns, but don their own clothes or own pajamas. The patients bring their own medications to the hospital and the nurses dose those and use stock supply for anything the patient doesn’t have. Nurses wear plastic aprons for all procedures, including hanging IV medications. The aprons vary in color – red means a more intense procedure (ie. Wound dressing) and “don’t interrupt me”, yellow and white.
The sport group started the day watching the Salford City Reds rugby training session. They learned about Rugby League and some of the innovative training techniques used to monitor the athletes. Then they went to their brand new stadium for a tour. They met with the physiotherapist from the Sale Sharks (local team for Rugby Union) and toured their facilities. They finished their day at Sport City and toured the Institute for Sport, similar to US Olympic Training Center.
We headed out for our big Curry Night. This year we set a record – a table for 38! You should have seen the excitement in everybody’s eyes as we were met by lime green tablecloths lined up and down the whole restaurant for US! Within minutes we were greeted with foods of various colors and amazing flavors. We started with papadum, Reshmi kabob, onion Bhajee, lamb samosa, chicken tikka and aloo kebab. This was accompanied by plain, garlic and sweet nan (our favorite!). Ask the students… Somehow we were able to find room for main dishes also – chicken tikka masala, and 3 others. This was followed by dessert – Mentos. Odd, but true.