Day 6

How did mission Hospital compare to the Swain County Hospital? Mission hospital was alot larger and it had many more resources than that of Swain County. What is the distance that people come to receive care here? I believe that Mission Hospital serves more than 25 counties so people travel from a very far distance to receive health care here. What stood out to you the most today? The thing that stood out to me the most at Mission Hospital was the lifts that went into the bathrooms. This is amazing. I work on an ICU and we have lifts in every room but if we want to get them up our choice is either a chair or a commode. I think its amazing that they can get their patients into the restroom because its the small things that make people feel like human beings.

Wow, what a day. Today is the 6^th day in our Rural Health Class, and man it was a long one. We woke up and were ready to head to Mission Hospital at 7am. I was a zombie this morning, so I stuck my headphones in instead of looking up our destination on google maps, that’s my mistake because an hour later we figured out we were heading the wrong way on the interstate. We arrived at Mission hospital around 9am and we toured their ER which had 50 rooms and their ortho floors. This hospital is not what I expected, I honestly expected it to be like the hospital I work at (OSF Saint Joseph), but this hospital was AMAZING. They had all of the latest technology and they seem to continually troubleshoot ways to make the patient experience better while triaging them quicker in the ER.

When leaving Mission Hospital, we had to take a shuttle ride to where our van was parked. While we were in the hospital the parking lot filled up fast with families of construction workers who came to feed them. I can not believe that Amy got us out of that parking spot without hitting anything. We had a huge crowd staring at us, but Brenda lead us in the back and a nice man helped us with the front. It was a long hour drive home, and everyone was exhausted. When we made it back to the cabin, myself and 3 other students changed into hiking clothes so we could climb Clingmans dome.

The drive to Clingmans dome was absolutely beautiful. Once we got to the parking lot, we were all off, and hiking to the top. It took me a while, and I had to stop a few times to catch my breath. There was a point where I felt like telling everyone to go ahead without me, but I told myself to just keep going, and it was well worth it. The top was amazing. I could feel the cool, misty air touching my cheeks, and even though it was foggy, and we couldn’t really see anything, I felt so good because I made it up there. The hike down was pretty easy, I realized that if I ended up falling, I would just tumble down to the bottom so either way I was getting back to the van somehow but thankfully I didn’t stumble over my own two feet. We stopped at a little shop near the parking lot at I bought a shirt that said I conquered Clingmans dome, and I bought my grandmother raw honey.

Once we left our hiking trip, we made our way to the strip to do some shopping, unfortunately there were multiple shops closed so we will go back tomorrow. After the strip we split up into 2 groups and Hannah, Brittany, and I hit up dollar general so we could spend 350 dollars on toothbrushes, toothpaste, canned food, soap, socks, and shirts.

It is now almost 10pm and I am so ready for bed. Tomorrow we are going to the food pantry and then we are going to go shopping and eat pizza. See you guys tomorrow!