Student Nurse Blog Week 11

November 4th 2004

Hello there,
Hope you are all keeping well. On Tuesday I did my first community placement.

 I went to the health centre where my community health visitor is based. It was a great day. I learnt lots about child birth and certain complications. My health visitor phoned around and arranged some more placements for me. Under the EU directives we are supposed to do five days community placement in our first semester, first year (about thirty hour’s altogether). I covered a small amount of child protection and then got to go out with the health visitor. We saw two babies in the morning and carried out an eight week assessment and a normal review. I was able to see the babies weighed and measured. At lunchtime I went through the hearing device they use to test a babies hearing, as well as reading through a book on babies nutrition. In the afternoon I was able to go out again with the health visitor and we saw three babies. Again we carried out assessments and reviews, and weighed and measured the babies - as well as measuring a couple of their heads! I learnt quite a lot and really enjoyed it, although I still want to remain in general nursing and don’t plan to change to paediatrics!!
When we got back to the office my health visitor went through an assessment tool that they use on babies they might be worried about, and she also showed me the register they keep on newborns.
Then she went through the locations and dates of some of the other community placements she had arranged for me. They all sound very interesting.

Yesterday I had a late shift. I went in in the morning to use the computers in the Hospital library to check my emails and training dates. At lunch time we had a ward staff meeting, which was very interesting. Because the ward I work on is only three months old, and due to it’s skill mix (stroke assessment unit, acute medical, and infectious diseases), there are going to be lots of changes and improvements to the way it’s run and the teams of nursing staff. I will only see some of the changes, as I am only there until February and the schedule of changes are planned over a one year period.
The late shift was quite busy. When we came on there was an acutely ill patient in the section I was working in, so the nurse was busy with the patient and doctor, meaning that I had to take a handover from the off-going nurse!! In addition to that, there were quite a few things that needed doing in the handover, so I had to jot things down and remember a lot. Luckily I was able to handover to my supervising nurse half an hour later, so it wasn’t too bad. She made me co-ordinate some of the tasks/jobs that had been highlighted from the handover, which gave me good experience. I had to do the observations to start with, then needed to weigh someone, then needed to get a CSU, plus check a pressure relieving mattress, and help look after the poorly patient, plus help the other patients. It was certainly a good shift, with quite a bit of experience!!

I am off today and tomorrow, but have a night shift tomorrow night. This morning I had a fire lecture at 830am for an hour, now I have just checked my emails and am updating this blog.

I am really enjoying my training. The placement is great and I am having a fab time, learning loads and getting to practice practical skills. All of the staff are really supportive and are willing to teach me things and answer my questions. The rest of today I am going to do some study, but also take it easy and have a slightly relaxing day.

If the system doesn’t crash again this weekend (like it did last weekend - it seems that no matter how big the NHS hospital is, the computers still tend to crash whenever they want!!), I will update my blog sometime on Sunday, and tell you a bit about what it’s like working in a PFI hospital - not as good as I first anticipated!!!  Matt

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