Student Nurse Blog Week 2

August 29th 2004

Well, everyone, it’s my last few days at work. I am working this weekend - Sat, Sun, and Mon - on the wards (from 1pm - 9pm) and am on-call for theatres for endoscopy in the mornings, so I have to go in at 1030am anyway to self-disinfect our only working decontamination machine and refresh the two sterile emergency endoscopes, the theraputic gastroscope and the emergency colonoscope. I am just so looking forward to leaving the Trust now and moving on to do my training.

I don’t regret coming to work at this hospital, because it has provided me with so much experience, training and support. However, you can hear the whole hospital creaking and groaning under the strain it faces through serious lack of resources and staff, with a growing demand on it’s services through the ever busy holiday seasons.
I think it will also be valuable to do my training at a different Trust, to allow me to see how other Trusts do things - no one Trust ever seems the same(?). Also, the new Trust I will be joining has a brand new hospital (about two years old), built under the PFI scheme (Private Funding Initiative), so the hospital is a partnership between the NHS and a private healthcare company. The Hospital is very nice and even looks brand spanking new! It will certainly be a valuable experience to work and do my placements there.

As for my preparations for moving. Everything is now organised. Over the last week I have made about three phone calls to the housing agency to check and double check they have received all the paperwork they need from me,and to ensure that I have not missed anything out. Three days ago I sent the cheque off for my new contents insurance. The only thing I need to do when I get to Worcester is to registar with a dentist and a doctor. One of my friends is providing his van to move my things up there. So he will arrrive at my place at 830am friday morning. We should take an hour to load up the van and an hour and a half to get to Worcester. I have to collect the house keys from the University, then it’s a case of moving my things into the house and meeting my new house mates, three female student nurses.

The only thing that does concern me is the fact that I may be the only male on the intake. When I went to the open day/induction day, out of the 400+ (adult, child, and mental health courses) people that turned up at the university, I was the only male. I don’t mind being out numbered, but it would be nice to have some other male students on my course. I’ll just have to wait until Monday 6th and see then.

Anyway, I had a really bad day yesterday afternoon. The shift didn’t go too badly, infact I quite enjoyed it as I was on a medical ward and I prefer medical over surgical or orthopaedics (medical patients/conditions can be so much more complex). I just seemed to be in a really bad mood at the start of the shift and again a couple of times wondered if I was doing the right thing. However, no matter how many bad shifts I get, I am still determined that I am doing the right thing and that I will love the amazing journey through my nurse training.

Lets just hope that I am right.

Anyway. I will keep you updated once again next week (before the move), and then sometime during my first week in Worcester.

Catch up with Matt in the Nursing Forum

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