Hedonism

Apologies for the dramatic delay in Blog postage. What can I say???? I have been in Primary Care up until about a month ago on placement and have had my head firmly up the arse of my University trying to keep up with the plethora of work they keep hurtling at us.

Community Nursing was so good. So interesting. So endearing. It warmed me up, the hospital made me cold and sterile in my Nursing care, I forgot I treated patients, they might as well of been animals. I was in a very large district nursing time (20+ staff) that covered a large area and 7+ surgeries. There were 5 other students on placement with me. Despite it being busy, I was very lucky for the opportunity to see what I saw and learn what I did.

My next placement is ICU. Not 100% confirmed yet as they have informed us this week that they over-subscribed (f0r whatever dumb reason) students to that placement allocation so they may need to boot some of us off it, I hope I don't end up one of those students because I so badly need the experience, but we shall see. I have heard on the grapevine that those who get bumped off a high-dependency placement get sent to one only third years get instead, like Cardiac ICU or A&E. That would be nice but I'm just hoping I get some kind of high-dependency area. I find out the middle of March about a week or two before I go back in placement again.

Otherwise, I am happy. 2011 was an amazing year, 2012 is looking to be the same. I have changed my mindset, my goals and my views on this whole experience. Before I was so future-orientated, so obsessively driven by end-results and I thought it was the key to my happiness. When it all fell apart in 2010, I felt so hopeless and as if nothing will ever repair. Now I am geared towards a somewhat hedonistic lifestyle. I take care of myself first and everything comes into place. Surprisingly, happiness has been the key to me working hard and succeeding Not the other way around. I also try to treat stressful situations as less of a threat and more of a challenge that needs to be overcome. Whoever said my way of living was the wrong way, well.... I am living proof that is not the case. By letting go of all of my worries, taking care of myself and trying not to crumble every time life throws a curve-ball. I have learnt so much, worked very hard, and reaped the rewards. It pays to stop and appreciate what you have and think of how to maintain what you have while moving forward and progressing. I'm thankful I have changed now whilst I am still very young, and not when I'm halfway through my life. I also have my very supportive friends and family to thank, as well as my loving boyfriend. Life is good.

Sorry, I'll try to sound less like a Televangelist or a motivational speaker in my next Blog. I just feel like I had to get it out there. I'm doing GREAT.

This Blog provided some kind of catharsis in the past for me, to deal with the ups and downs, but I'm moving forward with that now to post more information-enriched stuff in the very near future. This space is changing. Join me? Stay tuned.

Nursing Student (Mary) - x

Mission Accomplished

Well.. another placement gone, another placement closer to qualifying!

I'm exhausted and now on the post-placement come-down which involves a lot of lay-ins and toast in bed after doing 45 hours a week for the last ten weeks.

I'm now enjoying a nice summer in the sun before the carnage of next year ensues.

More NHS Nursing Student this September.

Placement!

Warning, this post is so long and full of useless information it may bore you to death.

I've been so stressed out the last few weeks, but I've finally been given my placement details. I'm so thrilled. I sent my placement prep office a borderline-abusive email the other day saying that it was unacceptable for a returning student currently at home with the rents to be left waiting an incredibly long time (because it IS unacceptable) when there are things to organize like accommodation etc. All the other students in the general cohort had been given their placements and I hadn't, I felt on the bottom of "the list" for an allocation. When really I should of been at the "top" along with all returning students who have been off, since I need to be re-orientated and given a decent placement more than others to succeed and get my bearings. My personal advisor Janette and year coordinators agreed with these sentiments, but there is no interfering (apparently!) with the placement prep department!! Well I'll bloody well show them! I thought.. Thus an e-mail was born and sent. I wouldn't normally fuck with the placement prep department, in fear I piss off one of the clerks and get "targeted" and slammed with a shitty placement, but I was so pissed off, at this point ANY placement would have been a blessing.

To top it all off, I was left with the news that my placement could be anywhere up to 40 miles away within my "area" of placement allocations. It would appear since I left hospitals within my area where mostly everyone goes have closed placements and new ones have opened up to students a bit further out. Community Nursing centres, health centres, GP's etc. Normally this would be fine but given the fact I am in desperate need of hands-on "ward based" care and within reasonable distance of my accommodation for 10 weeks since I had no car, getting a 40 mile commute would of been useless.

So boderline-abusive e-mail sent, generic "there's nothing we can do to help you, I will tell department manager your concerns when she's back off annual leave" crap response back. Then yesterday I get a very lovely phone call whilst walking the dog with my niece. The department manager has been in his job donkey years, and is obviously familiar with my situation. To top it off she tells me she was a Nurse and understands my sentiments in the e-mail I sent that I really need ward care and nearby at my usual hospital (for accom reasons) so that I can get my bearings.

"We've actually allocated you just today a GP placement about 15 miles away from where you live, but the surgery haven't got your details yet so the allocation isn't complete. If we talk about this now maybe we can sort this out".

Le sigh, and I comment about how I really shouldn't be going 15 miles down the road on a community placement when I haven't been on a ward for well over a year!! I'd be going into my second year in September, completely de-skilled and possibly en-route to somewhere major like A&E or ICU for the second year placements, scared stiff. Because thats where you head for second year, straight into the deep end. How would I of survived? I certaintly would not have been wiser for a GP experience then going straight into ICU on October 1st.

"Well what placement would you like then?" in a cheeky tone.

My ears pick up. She's taking me seriously. I try not to push it.

"I'd really like a ward placement in Hospital X"

I thought that was a big enough ask. I thought there and then if she could get me anywhere in that hospital which is only a 10 minute bus ride away, and I know well from working there, I'd be set.

"Alright, but what placement do you really want Mary?".

Oh Christ, she's actually asking me where I would like to go on placement. Is this a practical joke? I sense her tone is cheekier so I decide to be cheeky back.

"I'd really love a placement in specialized medicine, or surgery, just something interesting that will re-orient me to ward care the same. I've had X, Y & Z placement already and I'm really eager to try something different but one at the same time will help me into second year placements".

She spends 2 minutes after I said this umming and arring down the phone and I can hear tapping on the computer screen and flicks of paper in front of her. I figure she's looking and since my niece at that exact moment decided to reach into a stingy nettle bush for the dogs Frisbee and scream bloody murder at the top of her lungs, I say I will call her back. She responds saying in half hour she's off to a meeting then home for a day but will sort something out for me before then, and get her assistant to call me later in the day. At this point I'm so eternally grateful I could reach down the phone and snog her face off, but instead offer my polite (and professional!) thanks and gratitude and hang up to let her do her work.

An hour later I get a call from her assistant who informs me a placement has been giving to me at Hospital X. YAY! I ask her the details and she says she can't give them at this minute because the computer system has gone down and the details are already up on there. Blast! But at least I have a placement at Hospital X. All is well. She (the manager) was able to get me this placement because it had been "freed up" on the system that day by another student. Basically meaning a student had dropped out of the course before placement began. I'm told to check my e-mail later on today because when the system is finally working, the automated e-mail to me with the details will be sent out. My University actually sends out e-mails with all the details. I suspect it all comes from an automated system somewhere, but it's efficiant nontheless. Some other schools I know of use this log-in system with details on there (as well as details of students on the course) and the school (at the end of placement) log in all timesheet and hour numbers (and sickness). That sounds great, but I actually prefer the e-mail system because anything I ever need to know is accessible through e-mail, work computer, uni computer, etc, in my inbox. It's just a shame the system was down that day.

So I leave it, and leave it some more. Finally today I get around to logging in and see my placement detail e-mail. It's amazing!

I've basically been given a department "set" which is in Cardiology! I'm rotating with 7 other students. I will spend a few weeks on my "main" cardiac ward and then off to Cardiac surgery ward for a few weeks (and see surgery), Cardiac HDU (amazing!) then general HDU (optional) and then a bit of Respiratory and the end of placement will be spent back on my main ward. I am super excited. Who wouldn't be? For two of the weeks I will actually be at another (nearby) hospital since my hospital doesn't host the whole "cardiac package" like some, but that is fine since it's still pretty close and accessible by bus, just another 5 minute journey on top of what I'm doing now. Nonetheless, I'm excited and thrilled to be back on a ward, and in somewhere that will keep me busy, educated and skilled again!

Hooray for meeting in the middle! Don't take this the wrong way (because I really want to do community/GP nursing in the future) but I'm fairly certain if I had been giving that GP placement "for keeps" now you'd never be hearing from me again - I'd of thrown the towel in and closed this blog. There is no way I would be prepared for year 2 placements (which is basically october) after well over a year off the wards and then community, and there is no way I would have been able to of keep up with it giving it's location.

Here's to happy endings!

Now for the rush of studying and getting my drug knowledge "down" before placement. Wish me luck!

Lagging behind with longing

My boyfriend tells me I've been sleeping somewhat peacefully these last few weeks. Not many dreams, not moving around much, not getting up etc. Just perfect, peaceful sleep. I feel better for it too, I've noticed. 2011 has been turning out to be an amazing year. I don't blame it so much on luck or fate, but I do somewhat feel like it was a long time coming. I blame most of it on just being fed up, and wanting more. When you're truly at your wits end, something has to give. Circumstances piled together towards the end of last year and I just felt like if something didn't give soon, whatever was holding me up would snap. Something did snap, and I felt free, and ready to charge.

Sometimes, you have to really feel like you're at your worse. When you feel like that, everything that happens thereafter can only feel better. It gives you great perspective and let's be honest too, at the end of each era of your life, a sense of perspective is all you have left.

So why do I feel like I'm still, a lot of the time, at one mentally with the past? I have so much pent up emotions over the last year. Some days I wake up and feel so far from what I should be feeling right now. Some days I wake up and I forget and rejoice in the good, then it all comes flooding back. It's either one, I wake up gloomy or it comes in waves during the day.

This month is a difficult month. I truly put it all behind me and move on. I will start Uni again. I have a brilliant relationship with an amazing man. I'm injury-free. My friends lives are on track (and this makes me so eternally happy, because I feel like I cannot be happy if they aren't) and there is so much more joy ahead. It's nothing but up from here. I have so much anxiety about it all going well I sometimes find it hard to believe I sleep at all, let alone soundly each night.

In the book of Genesis, Lot's wife looks back on the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, against the advice of the lord. She was lagging behind her husband and the people they were able to save, who had good in them, because she could not bring herself to look forward. When she does finally look back, she turns to a pillar of salt. Just like everyone, the lord included, told her would happen. But she could not help herself. Her physical body might of been out of the cities, but her heart and soul were there, amongst the impurities, the hurt and the sin. She could not look forward just yet, she had to take one look back and that was enough for her to end up caught there forever.

I can't end up ruining all I've built now by looking back. I truly think if I do then I'll end up in a loop forever, praying on all I've lost and the hardships. I should celebrate the future.

So this is most definitely the last time I pray on these thoughts. It's felt good and therapeutic, perhaps somewhat essential. But when I go to bed in 10 minutes, I'm going to wake up tomorrow and just let go. Then in the near distant future when someone tells me 2010 was their best year (as this apparently seems to be the consensus) and asks if it was the same for me, I'll focus on the good since and just say "I've had better years". Looking back only hurts.

Michael Moore

Thanks Dr Grumble for originally posting this.

Interesting sentiments from Michael Moore. My friend last week who is currently out in the states told me to watch his Documentary SiCKO (link click-able) and to learn a bit more about the US system of health care compared with ours. I might if I can find it online. I know better than to watch a lot of these documentaries that verge on the edge of fear-mongering most of the time but my friend assures me it's not like that (for the most part) so if I watch it I'll post a link to where you can watch it and a small review, too. That's not if it's complete rubbish and I've been told to somewhat expect from Michael Moore.

For the most part, I'm trying to understand a bit better what the governments real plans are for the NHS. How most importantly this will affect patients. It's hard to watch & read news and understand what is really happening and what the news outlets want to make you think is really happening. I have been out of the NHS for almost a good year now on my leave of absence and due to go back this month. I have been told things already have changed at the very large hospital I work in. It will be interesting to hear from people inside the hospital and see it for my own eyes.

What I do know right now though from a Student Nurse perspective is that from the Student Nurse friends I have that go to eight separate universities, five of them have been able to confirm that a lot of places were cut in the recent intakes by asking their year tutors or personal tutors. Almost 10% from the Adult Nursing cohort at my school alone. That is a significant number and I have a big cohort. It was around 5% the year before when I joined and 5% before that. Around 4 places were cut on our Mental Health cohort and 2 in the Paeds. But those are smaller groups. Learning Disability Nursing numbers weren't cut but that group is small in our school with a massive drop-out rate so was probably not needed. So now it seems smaller groups that are now much harder to get into because of the degree change are also shrinking so it makes it even harder for applicants. Collectively I do believe the NHS save around £25,000 per place - that is around 20k of bursary a year and fees. That's a lot of saving if it's happening everywhere.

On top of that, the government are once again putting on hold a bursary reform that could result in a rise in the bursary. So they are definitely holding their horses until they can pinch more money out of health care training, at least for the next year or two anyway.

I don't know whether it was announced Student Nurse places were shrinking fast in England but it certainly did not go unnoticed in Scotland. I know each year even in the labour government training for HCP's such as Physio's and Nurses dwindled, but it seemed much more significant this year and particularly in Scotland it will be bad this coming September. I am wondering if a little investigative work into this is worth it, or see if any official numbers are released closer to September, because if they are out there then I'm certain the Nursing Times, as annoying as they usually are, will pick up on it as they are shit-hot like that.

If I am missing some kind of announcement or an overview of HCP places numbers this year, or proposed cuts from the government then please point me in the direction of where I can read further. I haven't been brilliant at keeping up with the news as of late and I'm genuinely interested in this.