Student Nurse Blog Year 3 - Week 42+

June 27th 2007

Posted 27/06/2007

My time in theatres is going extremely well. I've been able to scrub along side the scrub nurse on a number of occasions and the amount I've been able to do each time I've been scrubbed has increased. There is one surgeon we work with a lot and she has been really supportive. Whenever I am in theatre with her she allows me to scrub (when I am not scrubbed alongside the scrub nurse) and help assist her with some of the minor things during the operations.

I have two weeks left in the general theatre before moving on to do my final three weeks in anaesthetics. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by! Despite the BUPA hospital group being up for sale, I am still hoping to transfer to the Manchester BUPA hospital when I move up there later this year. The company that are looking at taking over the BUPA hospital group sound really promising and it looks like the sale could be for the best. I have also applied for a part time job with a district nursing team up in Salford, just in case things with BUPA don't work out so well. However, in addition to that I have a few other projects lined up, so will have to wait and see how things go.

I am not too worried. I have a place on the degree course, I have a flat all organised and the removal van is booked. I've got the maintenance loan for the new academic year and a friend of mine has kindly offered to cover the first years tuition fees for the next course.

I have started packing - although I don't move for another five weeks - because when I am not on placement I spend a lot of time away working on other things and don't want to leave everything to the last minute.

In a way it is sad that I am coming to the end of what has been an amazing and exciting three year journey. However, it is also quite exciting that I am going to be moving to a new location and starting a new three year journey. Whether I will continue to live in Salford once I have completed the three year degree course is anyone's idea, I certainly don't know myself!

Take care all, I will try and blog again soon. I hope to do at least one blog every week and a half before I finish.

Matt

 

Posted 05/07/2007

This week has gone well, as always.

On Monday I had my final interview for my clinical placement practice book and passed, ofcourse! Today the provisional results of our final three assignments came out. I got a 'B' for the management assignment, a 'B-' for the reflective/professional practitioner assignment and a 'D' for the ethical/legal assignment (not as good as my usual high grades, but still a pass!).

Today and yesterday our the days for my small group to do our 'Simulated Practice' days. These are being introduced into the pre-reg training for student nurses at our uni, but have been used for many years at other universitys'. They involve working as small groups in clinical skills rooms as if you were nursing staff working on a ward or other clinical area.

We started at 930am and had a briefing on what to expect for the two days and why the days had been put in place. Immediately several of us agreed that we should have been having these days as part of our course from the start of the second year onwards.

We were then assigned our parts. There were eight students in my group, plus three lecturers and two clinical facilitators. Three of us (including me) were given roles of staff nurses. Two other students were given roles of third year student nurses. One student was a patient, one student was the patient's relative (but also took pictures on the digital camera), and one student was the SHO (doctor). Three clinical facilitators acted as the other patients. the area was a six bedded medical assessment unit.

The shift started with handover. Then we went on with our tasks. I started the drug rounds. It was a very useful excerise to be able to practice running a clinical area in a safe environment. One patient was very restless and ended up leaving the ward (self-discharging) without informing the nursing staff, one patient had a sub-dural bleed which worsened and was eventually rushed to theatre, on patient was in retention and disorientated due to a UTI (urinary tract infection) and another patient went to endoscopy before we were admitted a new patient with an acute MI who very quickly arrested! In amongst all of this we had two doctors to deal with to write up drugs, review poorly patients and carry out other jobs, relatives phoning up or visiting (especially when one relative arrived just as the patient she was visiting was being resuscitated!), drugs rounds to do and tests and X-Rays to organise!

It was, in a way, like a shift from hell, even on an MAU! But we all survived and gained great experience from it. The whole thing only lasted an hour and forty minutes - but it was a long hour and forty minutes! We then broke for lunch for an hour before returning to review the scenario and reflect on the patients', how we had done as nursing staff and how we felt things had gone.

Tomorrow is a longer period. We do not have a briefing (as we had this today) and instead are assigned our roles and go straight into the scenario. Tomorrow is community, as opposed to acute, so it will be interesting to see how things go. If I get time I will blog again and let you all know how it turns out.

That's about it for now.

 

Posted 19/07/2007

Well this week was the start of my three weeks in anaesthetics. Monday was a funny day. I had a venepuncture and cannulation exam to sit at 9am so arrived at theatres to start my shift at 8am and was allowed to go to the hospital library to quickly revise before the exam. I spent the rest of the morning with the anaesthetic nurse in one of the general theatres. We quickly recapped on some of the drugs used in anaesthetics, the role and responsibility of the anaesthetic nurse and safe practice.

In the afternoon I was able to shadow the anaesthetic nurse in the vascular theatre, where there was a big case going on - an Aortic Aneurysm. It was quite a big case with a lot of blood loss, so I was able to look at how the cell saver operated (a device used to collect the patient's blood - only used in cases of large blood loss - and then filters out everything so all you are left with is red blood cells. These are then cleaned with saline and then transfused back into the patient).

Because the anaesthetic nurse who is going to act as my mentor for the three weeks is away until Thursday I was assigned to shadow one of the anaesthetic Sisters Tuesday and today for my 8am - 6pm shifts. For these two days we were in the Trauma theatre, which is really good because I haven't done a lot of orthopaedics, especially trauma. I had a great two days and the sister taught me all about how blood pressure is affected by anaesthesia and local and regional anaesthesia. We covered the different types of anaesthesia and when they were used for different operations. I was also able to go through the different types of airway management and how they worked, as well as the indications for their use.

I was able to check patient's into the anaesthetic room under supervision, checking their identity, consent form, allergies, etc. and applying the monitoring equipment. The anaesthetist that we had today was brilliant and allowed me to bag and mask a couple of patients', as well as showing me how to intubate patients' and the safe practice for managing a patient's airway.

My mentor is due back off leave tomorrow and from what I have seen of the rota we will mainly be working in the Trauma theatre and the Emergency theatre (CEPOD). I should also be able to do my competencies in cannulation and venepuncture during my time in anaesthetics.

I have got everything in place for moving to Manchester and only have a few last minute arrangements to make. Because I have such a great interest in anaesthetics, I will be working lots of long hours over the next few weeks and will also be doing weekends, so this may be the last chance I get to update my student nurse blog. If anyone has any questions regarding life as a student nurse, please feel free to post them on this blog and I will try my best to answer or give advice as appropriate. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while I would like to thank you all for your support in making it such a success. I hope that I have been an inspiration to those of you who have been considering starting your nurse training, and a motivation to those of you who are in the early stages of your nurse training.

I will keep you updated as to my progress on my new course in Manchester, although it is more generically healthcare related rather than nursing. Regarding my future I am not even sure that I will be able to work part time as a nurse once qualified. My new course could involve one full day and three or four half days at university (depending upon the optional modules I select), which means that I probably won't be able to get part time work as a newly qualified nurse - although I still hope to be involved in a lot of health promotion and education work of some kind. I am also in the process of joining an acting agency (I have worked for one before for around three years, about ten years ago) doing supporting and extra work in films, television and commercial promotions. It pays good money and is very flexible. I hope to set up my private practice again once I've moved to Manchester and still do some private consultancy work as a Health & Safety advisor (as well as some work in the Food and Beverage industry). At least I will be able to transfer my valuable skills and knowledge gained from my nurse training into my work in Complementary medicine, health promotion and education and general practice.

I would like to finally thank Amanda, the site manager, for all her support and guidance in the writing of this student nurse blog, and for inviting me to write the blog in the first place.

A big congratulations to all the fellow students on the 09/04 cohort who passed their final assignments and final practice placement interview. I wish you all the best for your future careers in nursing and hope that you all get jobs within the next few weeks!

 

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