divulgence // luke hemmings au

25

Luke had been in nursing school for several weeks now. He took morning and afternoon classes and worked in the nighttime.

Some days he didn't sleep at all practically living off caffeine to stay awake.

Regardless of the sleep schedule he seemed a lot happier and looking forward to the career change.

In class he learnt stuff he already knew and learned stuff he didn't know, some of it fascinated him.

This week was the first week of lab practice and Luke was thrilled. He was one of two guys in the entire class and the rest were young women who gawked and fawned over him because he was constantly adding on to the classroom discussions. They liked how knowledgeable he was and how he was willing to explain things they didn't understand or lend them his notes.

Now it was halfway through the first week and practically everyone ran up to Luke to either ask him a question or work with him.

"Luke am I doing this right?" One of his classmates asked him as they were trying to start an IV on another classmate. "You are but aren't. Insert the needle at angle so you actually hit the vein."

Luke grabbed the butterfly needle from the and angled it to show them this technique. "When you're doing an IV you have to make sure you're actually hitting the vein because if not the entire thing is useless and you wouldn't be able to help the patient"

"Thanks. I'll remember it from now on." The brunette woman smiled taking out a fresh needle as her partner remained still.

"Luke?!?"

He heard his name come from the other side of the room so he walked over to another group who needed his help. "What's up? You need something?"

"Yeah, I don't know if it's my ears but I don't know what I'm supposed to be hearing when doing a manual blood pressure."

"Well first thing you want to do is locate the biggest vein closest to the skin surface on the arm you have the cuff on, you'll place the bell of you stethoscope on it and start inflating the cuff you should be hearing a whooshing sound which is blood being forcefully pushed through the body. You should be waiting till that noise stops to get your readings. It takes some time sometimes it can be hard to hear the first few times you do it because you aren't used to it."

"Thanks. At least I know there's nothing wrong with my hearing." His classmate giggled, Luke gestured to her and walked away.

He walked by another station "Ooh EKG practice? This is one of my favorite things to do as a medic." He got excited. Watching his classmate Tori try and perform an EKG on his other classmate Jessie.

He observed watching Tori place the electrodes impressed at her placement. "The left leg one is peeling off do you mind if I fix it? The EKG won't come out right if a sticker is falling off."

"No I don't mind. Haha."

Luke fixed it and continued to watch Tori place the leads on the electrodes liking how fast she did it. "Impressive." He complimented awaiting a printout.

Tori tore off the printout and Luke stood behind her looking it "are you able to identify this rhythm ?"

"Yes, I can identify the p-wave, the qrs complex and the t-wave"

"Yes they're all there and it's consistent."

"Yes, all the R waves are consistent and upward."

"Yes, good observation. Are you able to calculate the heart rate and name the rhythm?"

"Yes I can. There are nine R waves and you have to multiply that by ten making Jessie's heart rate ninety beats per minute and she's in normal sinus rhythm."