My Dream

I had a rather interesting dream the other night. I was out in York with my other half. Having been around most of the shops, and helping her choose a birthday present for her mum, we decided to head home. Good job I was sleeping, this is the average blokes idea of hell (however, it was time with her so it was all good).

I find myself at the train station. The train is late "Tree on the line at Huddersfield". Great, but hey, I only have to wait over half an hour. Lets find the platform. Oh great, its full. Hang on, turns out there is a service to Newcastle about to arrive before my train. Ahh, so this is not too much of a nightmare.

After a few moments, the train arrives and my mobile phone decides to go off. As I am trying to talk, the sound of the train leaving is drowning out the caller. I am dreaming this is along the lines of "Hi, it (whuur whuur whuur) from (huuummm) hospital (lound blast of train horn) interviewed really well (clack clack clack clack) on the ward?"
Now, its just a dream and undoubtedly this is just me getting the big fob off. Oh well, I can see in my dream there is a flight of steps up to a closed walkway where I can talk. After all, this was a hospital where a) I never worked and b) had my first interview on the 7th who phoned me on my birthday (last tuesday) to ask to give me people to phone as referances were slow comming through. Ok, I decided in my dream I wanted to fully explore the horror of this nightmare of being fobbed off. Much in the same way one may fully probe the site of a rotting tooth. I ascend the steps.
"Do go ahead" I say.
"Well, as you have experance of being a student within Diabetes and Endocrinology, we are offering you a job as a Staff Nurse on the diabetic and endocrinology ward in the hospital"
Bloody hell, this is great, lets keep dreaming.
"Yes, of course!"
"Right, well, it will be monday now before I can send the acceptance forms out, and it will be 6 to 8 weeks by the time your CRB check comes back and you can start on the ward".
"Thats no problem, thanks!"
"No problem, thanks for accepting!"
Ok, deep breath. Lets just see how long it takes for me to wake up and come back to reality.
Pretty much walking back down the stairs to find my other half looking at me and saying to her "I got the job" seemed to be a good point to stop dreaming and wake up. Which given that we both had to wait till near 5:20 for that sodding train which was 52 minutes late in the freezing cold and rain made sure there was no doubt about it.

So, 3 years training:Check
NMC Pin Number: Check
Job: Check

What makes this all the more delicious is that while I was turned down by 2 posts, one was going to re-interview me, the job I get was from my first interview.

So, I have moved. You will find me posting on the new blog. Just click HERE to visit!
See you on the new blog!

My roads end

So, as of 13:30 I officially left placement. It was odd. I began the day with finding many people on duty. This was mostly HCA and two staff Nurses working the early shift. I had to wait to find out what team I was working in. It was the bay I was in on Tuesday. There were only 4 patients in the bay and two side rooms to see to. I did the baseline observations and wrote the risk assessments at the same time (there was enough time for this to be done at the same time). There was not a lot to do after making the beds and the morning did seem to drag. Two urgent ECG's were done by yours truly. The visiting SpR was happy with my lead placement and thanked for a "Nice ECG". That was pleasing!

I was searching for an IVAC infusion pump for some of the morning and went two several surrounding departments to source one. It was odd when a Nurse from the ward next door asked when I was finished my training to be able to reply "28 minutes time!". The ward senior sister wrote me a very nice witness statement which I will copy for my upcoming interviews. Next week I have 3 days in the university. Tuesday is the RCN conference, Thursday is a day of information and Friday is a closing lecture and NMC registration day.

My more pressing concern is the fact my Girlfriend last night decided she wanted to try and end our relationship claiming that things "Were not fair" on me and she was "very sorry". I am not sure what to say as this is a blow that I really did not see coming. I know emotions were running high the last few days. Now, not only do I have a job to worry about, I now have this broadside hit to deal with. To say that I have taken this bad is an understatement. I feel sick in the pit of my stomach and I have hardly eaten anything. Come to think of it, I have not eaten much at all this past week. I cannot stop thinking of her, and wonder what it is I ever did wrong to her. Any of the female readers with any ideas of what you would suggest I do please leave a comment. I figure that the best thing will be to give her some space to calm down a bit.

Speaking of the comment and the blog, I realised some time ago that after next week this blog and my ID will be redundant. I do not want to start a new blog yet, so if you have any names for the new blog which I will go on to make, and feel free to leave comment. "Staff Nurse Musings" anyone?

So, if you are a student Nurse, and you are wondering what it is like in the third year, if you are a nurse and were looking for another persons view, or you ever should be a person in the future who was considering Nursing, I hope that my small entries have been both entertaining and useful. I am now at the end of three years. I have passed the course and this time next week will be able to say that I completed my three years of University. I shall be able to put RGN after my name in a few weeks time.

In recognition of that, the video link at the top is the one that finally I choose to accurately reflect the end of the course. I have climbed the mountain of nurse training. Somehow, I have survived.
And to all the people who took the time to read and to post: My profound thanks.

A symbolic moment

A symbolic moment has just occured. That moment namely is the last time that I have prepared my uniform for duty tomorrow. I have done this for the past 3 years. Mainly because I quickly realised that being blearly eyed at 6am, 4:45am, 5:30am and 5:25am (times respectfully used throughout placement times, bar the community part of 2nd year when I was able to sleep to the late time of 7:30am. Ah, those heady days of 2006 eh?) resulted in me usually forgetting something important. Yup, tomorrow is my last placement shift.

I have had three years which have been... varied I guess. I have had some interesting times. Some good (like my first sucessfull CPR, Passing my Tripartites, the patients who I was able to help, the great Nurses and other people who I had the honour of working with. Most of all has been meeting the one person who, while I today fret over, has helped sometimes keep me on the straight with the course. My dear Girlfriend. There have been the bad. But do you know what? Mostly it was when my niece died last year and when that caused my to referr on a module. I have had bad shifts. I have had arguments with staff. I have had the abusive patients, and on more then once had to deal with a patient trying to very much kick and punch their way out of the ward. Oh well.

Tonight, all however is calm. I know that my girlfriend has her family with her and will be going home tomorrow (hopefully). I have some applications which I hope will be fruitfull, and there are interviews now comming through. A bursary came today. My RCN subscription has been renewed. My NMC PIN number will be here hopefully within the next 5 weeks. Now, for the final time, I will have to think of a succinct title to cover the next shift post. "My roads end" and "My Final destination" are both vying for position. There were other titles that would have been used for mid-course shifts. "My Bad day" for example never was needed for a title should a monumentally bad shift have occured. I have been trying to think of a single tune to embed as a video like for the post. The second place went to "Fall Out Boy" with the track "Thnks fr th mmrs". For what I settled on, call back tomorrow.

So, "what are you doing tonight then Nursing Student?" I hear you ask. Well, going out for a belated Christmas meal with my St John Ambulance division for a start.

My summersault and My emotional day

I have been in for two shifts now. The reason I have not posted until now will be come apparent. On Monday I was back on the ward. I was in an area covering 1 and a half bays. The patients were all light all things considered. There was one patient who required a pressure mattress. Before there was time to even think about this, they became hypotensive. The bed was elevated, and soon their pressure was back to near normal. The bed they were on was jammed. The HCA was having problems getting it back to normal position. I offered to help. When I tried it, the bed was jammed firmly down. However, after one heavy tug, the bed decided to go shooting down, nearly causing me to summersault into it. The bed was soon adjusted and the pressure relieving mattress was fitted. I was not exactly too concerned about the ward though for the day. I am afraid that my mind was more concerned with a patient who was in surgery about that time. The simple reason being, that as it was my girlfriend who was in for her operation, I was worried a lot. That’s putting it mildly! Eventually, after phoning the ward (and giving the attendant long spiel to the nurse about who the patient was, what the admission was for, who I was and to phone me back on the two hospital extension numbers if she did not believe me), I got news she was back from theatre. I asked to have time away from the ward at the start of visiting time, which was granted. I had deliberately missed my breaks to accommodate for this. I will not go into great details here of how she was. I was…shocked really I guess. I know that I see patients every day who are in worse states. The thing is though, as I once remember it being said of a patient: “A patient is a stranger in a bed who, when the time comes to need it, you can distance yourself from”. I simply cannot do that.

Yesterday I cheekily turned up on the hope that they may let visit as 2:30 (I called up near 1pm to ask this). The nurse took one look and said “Just go in now”. I only wish her recovery was better. Somehow, she has come out from the operation with a bad back. My patients were OK, and the nurse knew where I was. The patients were OK, there having been 3 discharges went a long way to helping make that assertion true. I only spent a short time with her. I went back to the ward and got the blood results off. I had cleared all the paperwork near 11am when doing the discharge writing. I then helped a HCA make beds. The staff had remarked I had been very quiet. It was only then, when I really started to talk about things to somebody else that the situation I find myself in now really hammered itself home. I have not found a job as a Nurse, the fact that I was worried about my girlfriend, how I am worried for her recovery, that I wanted to be with her, and most of all suddenly realising ones feelings toward her are more then I imagined, it all became…emotional.

My 2007

This is the end of the year and the end of my time as a student is drawing near. It will be another 29 days until I will be officially finished as a student Nurse (in case any of you were ever bothered I was/am a student at the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough). So, given that not only is this the end of the time as a student, I am also at the end of the year 2007. So, what was 2007 for me?

January
Nothing remarkable for the first half of the year as the first week was spent on annual leave. The second week was the return to the final placement of second year (Critical care placement) in the ICU. The week was spent with patients on my three shifts (though I cannot recall much now what happened). The week after was my final tripartite for second year. This I passed, I remember being very nervous about the second year one, and was sent out to a cardiac arrest in the hospital with the arrest team and thought that was less nerve racking. The 2 weeks after was on my elective with the North East Ambulance Service NHS trust. That was enjoyable.

February
The first 2 weeks were study time and I prepared my portfolio. They went in on the 19th and I started 3rd year. This was a time when the attitude changed with the university toward the student groups (from “oh, don’t worry you are only a student” to “Right, your managing bays and other students when you go out next”). It sowed and I remember I ended up being late two days thanks to traffic (some did not even make it in to university). I met my girlfriend this month.

March.
The portfolio passed this month. Not a lot to report for March.

April.
The semester continued with the addition of the independent learning module coming online. There was no a lot to recall, I did have a weekend in York with my other half, and records suggest I had the blog by now.

May
I was asked to hand in an essay and this was worked on while I queried the MITS which had been applied for. This was met with a stern look and a mark of 30. That was not good. Some of the modules drew to a close as the final seminars were had.

June.
I was kicked off the course due to the 30 mark for the essay from second year. Thankfully, I still had some old paperwork and approached the student union with a view to appealing against the decision. It was agreed that I had a case and the assessment review was put in. I immediately started looking for work and was accepted for employment in a call centre. I also joined St John Ambulance.

July
Back on the course on the 3rd. I got the letter which while written on the 3rd only reached me on the day I was being asked to go into the university to meet with the pathway leader and 3rd year module leader. This went OK and I agreed the date’s to submit essays (3rd August). The essays were worked on, till one module asked for submission on the 3rd which was not originally intended. This took some sorting out.
August

A new placement was on the infections disease and diabetes ward. This is well document on the blog.

September
The placement was worked through and the essays all passed. One later needed re-submission though this was the one which I was asked to write in less then a week.

October.
The internship placement began in a old division. I did get a bit downhearted by this at first by slowly it did get better

November
The tripartite and nights dominated this month

December
The application for jobs started in earnest this month as did attending st john ambulance duties having passed the members first aid course.

My pre-emptive strike

Knowing that I was to manage the bay and do the obs on my Fridays shift I went in early with a check of the stock cupboard, and my stethoscope and sphygmanometer to do the obs manually which would save me 20 minutes farting about trying to find a dynamap that probably would not work. That paid off.

Having several dressing changes, a few washes and a patient who's BP dropped to 80 systolic kept me going so I decided to skip my morning break and worked up until lunch which was at 13:40. Bit of a long day when you think that I have been there from 07:00 that morning. Decided that there were several IV's needing to be done so got them done. The biggest thing the really frustrated me was the fact that there were no basic equipment to hand. There were no blankets, no hospital gowns, somebody took the DDA keys on their break so there was access to the controlled drugs, the scales broke and I had to find another set from a adjacent ward, and went to pharmacy and pathology twice via dropping a patient off as the porters went AWOL.
Its more "Crisis management" not "ward management" at the moment. Am back tomorrow after having a nice weekend with my girlfriend. I needed that break.

My Helicopter

It was an interesting shift Friday, mainly because I was working with a different staff Nurse after mine phoned in Sick. Had one patient who was not very well, and another who was on the End of Life Care Pathway (EOLCP). During the course of the sift, I was doing the work of a HCA as there had been a sick call. I am by no means complaining of Nursing in the role of the HCA as often a Staff Nurse will occupy a floating role to do this, but the most exasperating thing with this is that I am supposed to be on management placement at the moment, but have had only 3 days of actually doing anything like that.

I did have a good shift though, I decided that a patient would be better off having assisted feeding as they were not managing well with eating or drinking (several changes of gowns had occurred by the time lunch had arrived so I was not taking chances). Took another bay's patient over to CCU, and had a mild bit of excitement when I went outside to phone my girlfriend up as there was a large RAF Rescue Helicopter on the Helipad, several Police cars and a Fire engine. I am not sure what it was all about but it looked interesting enough, especially as there was a TV crew filming..

Apart from that just had a jaunt up to a nearby city with my Girlfriend who wanted some shopping, and I have a few ideas for my Christmas shopping (which I will have to do early this year as last Bursary is in December). So, now need to crack on with the essays!

Finally bothered to write, this week

Ok,

I have done the tutorial of the essay on clinical decision maiking, had a bad dream the other night I failed the essay and was kicked out of the university, met my old mate from the ambulance, and have my old vehicle back on the road.

Stayed at my girlfriends the other night, and have been to the hospital twice to see her where she was working. Not sure when I will see her next as she's on 12 hours on a neonatal unit.

Tomorrow, I have been told its our CPR exam, though I have it down as cannulation. Odd.

So, thats it for the last few days.

Stranded in suburbia gives a glimpse of utopia

Having spent the past few days with my better half, I realised that a few days away from the daily slog can really do wonders for the soul, and make you feel a little less angry with the world. Easter was quite nice, I feel very happy with the world in general this evening.

But why? Well, I am ahead with most of my work, the reading list I have is being worked through, a few more photo's of old ambulances from Scotland have been emailed to me so that's another article written up, and even my old historic vehicle while still refusing to start now no longer seems to phase me.

Over at the Dr Rant blog, even the ever present threat of the MMC fiasco and the deeper troubles of the NHS seems almost again to be quelled in the blogs standing as the bastion against some of the more anarchic medical opinion.

Amazing. From screeching through the streets in ambulances, to pacing the floor of the hospital, against all this, Student Nurse feels all charged up and ready to return to the grind. Maybe the romantic [.sic] walks through leafy suburban bliss at sunset with my girlfriend has made me happy, perhaps realising just how much I know from all the years of study finally starting to pay off has provided a valuable ego boost. Or the overall reason? All the above, plus not having to return for two more weeks and a weekend away next Friday to boot.
Ahhh, happiness for a few hours. That's a rarity!