The End…..

                                             

 

After 15 weeks of sleep deprived nights, exhaustion, stress and so many new things to learn that it could make your head explode placement is finally finished.  As well as placement we have received our final set of results for second year and I am happy to report this student nurse is on her way to 3^rd year.

Reflecting back on the past 15 weeks I can see that I have definitely improved within my nursing skills.  Especially when it comes to my knowledge of medication and my injection techniques specifically intramuscular.  I have also learnt a great deal more about the different medical conditions and the most appropriate nursing interventions for each.  All in all this placement within acute admissions/ ARBD team has really been the turning point in my training, it has made me more confident in my nursing ability on the lead up to starting my final year in September.

A piece of advice I would give to nursing students reading this no matter what stage of training you are at is one my mentor gave me;

You are never going to know everything and the day you think you do is the day you will make a mistake.

Nursing is one of those professions that you are constantly learning new things in and will continue to with each person you care for or professional you work with. I think that is the beauty of working in such an environment, an example of this would be the amount of information I ended up learning from just speaking to those health care professionals that came into the ward all the time such as dieticians, OTs, junior doctors, consultant, RT staff and even workers from advocacy/ external services. It gives you a new perspective on the work you are doing with patients in the ward and alters the way you think about them and your approach to their care.

I am extremely excited and if I am honest a tad terrified that this time next year I will be finishing my training and hopefully secured my first nursing job.  It definitely does fly past sooner than I ever thought it would. So it is time for those grey tunics to be hidden from the light of day in a drawer till the next placement and for myself to stop hiding from the light of day and enjoy what is left of this wonderful Scottish summer before I need to retreat back into the domain of the university library.  

The lost summer

The one thing they don’t tell you when you start nursing is the fact your summers are lost forever from that day on, swallowed up in that black hole of placement and stress. How I love nursing 🙂
So while all the other students in the university are posting on Facebook and chatting amongst themselves about;

how awesome this summer is going to be

Or

I can’t wait for my holiday in the sun

us student nurses are gearing up for a summer full of placement, coursework and having to listen to others going on about their summers of doing nothing or going traveling.

Today was just like the picture above so sunny and warm, sitting out in my wee garden after a day in Uni almost made me forget about the looming 13 weeks of placement coming up next week. I think though as much as we all moan about it -and we do all moan regardless of what some might say, while others are away on partying holidays to Ibiza and the like or sitting in beer gardens we are holding the hands of those in their time of need. We are providing that shoulder to cry on or that listening ear that might just help improve someone’s life for the better. In a way I feel privileged being able to spend my summer helping others after all it is what I am going to do for the rest of my nursing career. On the bright side I have been able to factor in a week off in exchange for a possible extra on placement so I can go to Finland, so I am super excited about that.

Operation get to third year is in full swing just this final placement to go and that is it I’m going to be a big bad third year nursing student, your nursing course absolutely flies by I still feel as if I have just started first year.