Oops, the student nurse did it again!

What do student nurses do? That's easy; we sweat during moving and handling, we comfort patients and families, we put our needs second - yes, we sometimes miss breaks, we balance exams/assignments along with placements and we'd take coffee via IV if we could but most off all? We make mistakes.

As much as we try to learn certain procedures, drug names and side effects, blood gas values and their meanings and even how to operate equipment and what they do (I have a story about a commode I'd like to share). As student nurses, we're trying to blend in with the rest of the pack but it is not about blending in, it's about having the courage to stand out.

What I mean by this is, so many student nurses are afraid - not of blood, needles, sweat or patients, but of one specific thing - looking stupid. When people are afraid of looking stupid, they don't ask questions, they are hesitant to try but most of all, they don't learn. That's what I want to talk about. 

I wanted to share my top four mistakes during my first placement that may even make you feel better about your learning experiences. So here we go!

1. I didn't know what a commode was. A nurse asked if I could go and get it and enthusiastic first-day me said "Yeah, of course!" and as I enthusiastically said yes and ran away to get it ASAP it dawned on me... I don't know what the heck I am looking for. It sounded like something soldiers use in the trenches. Luckily as I ran my eyes all around the utility room I saw a massive sticker that said 'Commode' which I saw a chair with a bed pan in. Turned out I grabbed the right thing - and they never knew!

2. I was giving a water bolus feed of 300ml, somewhere along my fourth bottle of sterile water I had forgotten how many mls I had done, and after counting the bottles I realised I had given an extra 30mls of water in the syringe... well, I tried to undo my mistake. I had forgotten that the point of a plunge is that it uses resistance to keep water in, without it it will just fall out... didn't think of that at the time so when I went to unscrew the syringe with 30mls inside, it went all over a 4 year old patient... whoops.

3. I was asked to get a feeding set with a bottle top, so I went down to the store room looking for a label/trying to remember what it looked like. I go in and see a label "feeding set", and what do you know, it sort of looks like a bottle top so I bring it back to the nurse and she bursts out laughing... "That's not a PEG feeding set, that's a breast feeding pump!"... Well, you live and learn.

4. First or second day we had to give a patient a bed bath, I remembered for the first patient that she had put wipes in a basin of warm water but I couldn't remember what wipes. I grabbed the closest ones I could find and put them in the basin which made it soapy. When she asked if I had put any bath soap in, I replied I hadn't... she looked confused, and then figured out I had used the green packet of Clinell wipes which are antibacterial wipes you use on surfaces, not people... *face palm*.

I hope you enjoyed my blunders, and looking back as I finish my first year of my PgDip course they make me laugh. Sure, at the time it can be a little embarrassing, but you have to take mistakes with a pinch of salt. Nurses don't mind if you make mistakes, so long as your honest about them. Of course, always follow your trust's guidelines and never do anything out of your scope of practice, but just remember that WE ARE NOT PERFECT. We make mistakes, even qualified nurses make mistakes! It's part of learning. I learnt so much by trial and error and you have to make sure you take every opportunity you can. As a student nurse, you have that title to fall back on when you make a blunder because as student nurses they expect us to make mistakes... but as qualified nurses the expectation becomes higher so use the student status while you can!

Remember to not be to hard on yourself. You're making a difference, even if you don't know what a commode is!

Please feel free to share what mistakes you've made as a student nurse - sharing mistakes should be a positive thing - we are all human!

What's it like being a PgDip Student Nurse?

For those of you who don't know, my previous degree was in Primary Education. In my previous blog I talked about why I shifted into another profession but in this blog I want to talk about what it's like as a student nurse working towards a postgraduate diploma in nursing (specifically children's nursing for me).

I'm 22 years old, I'd done the whole uni experience and on my first day, I wasn't that post-sixth form fresher who was worried about making friends or making a good impression, I was just relaxed, happy me, and it was so much better. A lot of people in my class are 25+ and it's great having mature students as your peers... we'd all done Uni, we all wanted to be nurses, we all wanted to be friends and work hard. The environment is so ideal, at least for me. Also, for the entire academic year, we have 1 essay and 1 exam.. that's it. Yeah. Pretty cool right? We also are only in Uni for 12 weeks out of 34, the rest is placement so it's pretty full on.

My first placement was in a special school, and of course when I heard "school" I thought "Great, I choose children's nursing and now you're sending me into a special school where students a year ahead of us basically told us we are temporary TAs and nothing else". I felt like I was walking into territory I wanted to walk away from. However, after a week of working there, I loved nothing more. I loved waking up in the mornings and thinking "Yes! Time to grab my breakfast to eat on that 20 minute train ride, and get to school!". I think it was an important placement for me because it re-instilled my love for learning. I had a bad last placement on my final year training to be a teacher, and honestly it led to some dark times for me, but when working with special needs children... it really is special. I know words are always changing for political correctness but special needs children... yeah, they definitely got that right. It was such an amazing, special six weeks I was even thinking about becoming a nurse for a special school... still am!

Now I am on my second placement in Neuro and Metabolic Diseases in Evelina Children's Hospital... and O-M-G am I loving it. It's so great putting skills and knowledge into practice. I just feel so honored to be trusted and to have responsibility over children's care and lives. I'm mostly working on the basics first like doing obs, familarising myself with PEWS, age parameters, fluid charts etc. but I feel I'm getting more and more confident each day.

To anyone who is wondering whether they should do PgDip in nursing and wondering if it is really intense? Not really - at least not for me. The training and paperwork to become a teacher when I was training was 10x what we have to do. We had to fill in forms and write a load of waffle each day - with nursing, you do as much as you can, get a few things signed off and bish-bash-bosh - you're sorted. I'm not trying to make it sound like it is a breeze, but if you are doubting whether you have the strength to complete it, with the right enthusiasm for nursing, you 100% will.

I'm so glad I chose nursing. Yes, NHS struggles are real... but I couldn't imagine doing anything else now. I've found my calling. I'm so glad I was able to get onto a PgDip course because I would of missed my calling.

Primary School Teacher to Nurse!

"Are you going to Uni?"

Perhaps one of the most common questions you'll get asked in Sixth form, as well as the only question that seems to matter to your school. As a trained primary school teacher, I've learnt that schools are crazy about three things: money, progress and statistics. I had wanted to be a primary school teacher ever since I left primary school, my mind was set. I wanted to educate young minds and be an inspiration to the masses, the gardener of the mind, the baker of education to which children could delight in the food of knowledge!

How naive I was.

Truth was, at eighteen I didn't know what I wanted. My sixth form was in such a panic: APPLY TO UCAS! THE DEADLINE IS LOOMING! PERSONAL STATEMENTS, COME'ST TO US FOR GUIDANCE! Honestly, those who decided they did want to go to University suddenly realized they had a life time decision to make in the space of an academic year, a decision that will impact their life greatly. Were they advised to take time before jumping into an undergraduate degree they may regret?... I think you know the answer. How can a 17 year old, coming off the seemingly slow conveyor belt of mandatory education,  know what career they want? My teacher at school said it took her til her 40s to figure out she wanted to teach! To know what career you want means you must know WHO you are and what you want. This takes years to figure out, some may not figure it out at all! Teachers, mentors, whoever made it sound like University was the escalator to success and apprenticeships were the stairs. What absolute rubbish! Looking back on it, it seems to me those I know who went into apprenticeships had a firmer idea of what they wanted to accomplish than those of us who went to Uni to study arts degrees. My advice to anyone who is listening is to never jump into anything: you're not a failure for waiting til you figure it out.. if anything, you'll be smarter than the rest of us who just thought they should go to Uni because it "seemed like the right thing to do".

The funny thing is now looking back at it, I never saw myself as a sixth former who was confused. I saw others that were but I thought I was lucky. I thought I knew what I wanted. Yet, after studying two years of sociology I realised that I had a passion for it. In a way, I'd say it woke me up from a daze. Karl Marx helped me see inequality.. pretty much everywhere. My teacher knew how passionate I was when I was up for debate pretty much every time the word 'working class' was mentioned. I never pursued sociology because I was afraid of changing my mind. I was afraid I would make a mistake. I was afraid of wasting time. 

Oh the irony.

I ignored my doubts and managed to get into Roehampton University, a well-known University for Primary School Teachers. I was thrilled but in the back of my mind I was thinking '... is this what you really want?'. I truly didn't know. I was on and off about the whole idea of being a teacher. I believe it was because I did find something in doing my degree, and that was I love working with children. I truly do. I loved teaching and I loved children, it was just everything else that came with it. After completing my first year of Uni, I almost quit to transfer to Sociology... but I didn't. I didn't because when I looked at the job prospects there was no job that interested me. That's when I discovered on my journey to self-discovery that I loved Sociology, I loved learning Sociology.. I just didn't like jobs that meant being stuck in an office all day, or doing research or ... not being with children. That's when I decided to stay on my undergraduate degree; I found a piece of my puzzle. I had to be with children.

Fast forward to my third, final year of my undergraduate degree. I got an interview in a local school in my area to be a Primary School Teacher for Year 5s. "Fantastic!" I thought. When the headteacher offered me the job I was overjoyed. I loved working with children who were old enough to have opinions, or get my sarcasm. It was all set, I was going to be a teacher. Then I had my placement, my last.. final placement, where every idea of becoming a teacher started to drift away... along with my enthusiasm.

My placement lasted 3 months, and every day I went to placement along with this other student who drove us there. I'd wake up and wish I was dead. When taking that half an hour drive, with the radio in the background playing a upbeat 80s song, it was the only thing I tried to focus on so I could stop having suicidal thoughts. Everyday, for roughly 90 days, I would smile at the thought of getting hit by a car, so I could relax in a hospital bed and be distracted by physical pain rather than emotional pain I was struggling with each day. To miss a day of school.. I would daydream til the children came in.

Yeah, it was that bad.

It was an accumulation of many things, for one my mentor teacher made my life hell. Nothing was good enough. I'd slog my guts out, working 12 hour days, marking, planning, marking and planning. I realized that what I was doing... was what the rest of my class mates were doing too. "12 hours?!" one girl said to me. "I do 12 on a good day!". "Don't worry, at least teachers can relax on the weekends..." said nobody, ever. What I was doing was nothing out of the ordinary.

Suffice to say, I knew I couldn't live my life that way. Yes, I loved teaching to an extent, but I love children more. I want to make a difference in children's lives but I didn't want to sacrifice my own. I love working with vulnerable children, but at the end of the day I want to be involved in their lives where I can physically and emotionally help them..to use medical knowledge to save lives instead of telling them off because they hadn't learnt their spellings.

That's when I discovered I wanted to be a children's nurse. It was a thought that almost hit me on the head. I am not afraid of hard work - the fact I completed my teaching degree is evidence. I've worked 12 hours straight before, but most work I did at home. I wanted a job that gave me a mental break. A job where I could save lives and then switch off as soon as I left those doors. However, I want it to be known that I don't for a second believe nursing is easier than teaching; but it's certainly not harder. Both have their struggles, but the struggles of nursing suits me more as a person, than teaching ever could. With nursing, I can give children comfort, support, love and care. With teaching, it felt all I was giving them was commands, homework and support to progress.. because goodness knows the statistics will tell me if little Sam didn't get support. Whether it is teaching or nursing, they're will be ups and downs, bullying and bonding and leadership and breakdown... but I know this: I have never felt so happy, content and alive than I do training to be a nurse than when I was training to teach. I think I have finally found my vocation... just took me my undergraduate degree to find it.