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.
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