I'm a Child Nurse (whether you like it or not!)

I no sooner had posted about changes in nursing than I had seen Zarkonnen's posting over at Not Powerless, a blog for letting people know that their voice matters, so you get two updates today. Unlike a normal post this one made me jealous I hadn't got in there and written this first. He discuses gender identity and the role of men in our cultures gender paradigm. Men are socially aloof - we choose how to talk to children and how to talk to women. However hard I want to be able to dispel this idea as old fashioned or inappropriate I find that I too follow these rules most of the time.

The worst thing is that like many social conventions I don't follow these rules for my own benefit, I follow them for the benefit of people I would normally choose to help. A while back I blogged about meeting a woman who was going through a really rough time on a bus. I did what I could to help, but she initiated everything - however visibly distressed she was I couldn't try and speak to her without it being entirely clear that I was allowed to.

This social norm makes my career change interesting. I regularly joke that I don't like children because of my slightly standoffish attitude to encounters with miniature people. The fact is, I don't dislike children, I love kids. I chose paediatrics because I like kids and want to help, amongst other reasons. But to say that I love kids, or to interact with someone else's children in public, feels like to big a risk for me. I'm desperate that things will be easier when I'm working, and I've been told by many people that they will, but it worries me - why should my gender limit my career choices?

What does being a nurse mean?

The job role of the nurse has, historically, been a very changeable thing. Different eras, cultures and nations have assigned different jobs to nurses. In some places nurses are virtually doctors, prescribing drugs and diagnosing. In others they are pretty much there to fill the gap between porter and doctor, carrying bedpans and making beds.

The differences might appear stark in some cases - Australia still has state enrolled nurses, rather than the full registered nurses that the UK demands as a minimum entry qualification. This difference is looking like it will change dramatically soon too, with the UK government making entry into nursing only available to graduates.

The profession is considered to have evolved into the modern paradigm during the era of Florence Nightingale, when standardised technique and training started to come into force. These days nursing is a fully trained profession, and not the on the job "trade" that existed previously. The change in Nursing qualifications to remove the Diploma and introduce a Bachelor degree-only route into practice isn't the big deal many people seem to think it will be. The way I look at it is that Nursing is currently a profession requiring 3 years of higher Education to enter. The Diploma take the exact same amount of time as the Degree, the only difference being the demand on academic work in the final year of each course. There is an issue of funding, as the Diploma route is currently free and the Degree costs the same as a standard Bachelors from any UK university, but this is minor and will be resolved.

In my opinion the big change is, or at least appears to be, the move from a caring profession to a scientific one. A lot of reports seem to feel that removing students from wards to classrooms will be detrimental to the quality of care issued. Under current training student nurses spend over 50% of their time on placement as supernumerary staff. One article I've seen claims that this supernumerary status is a major reason for a fall in standards. The only way that having the pressure of having to know everything from the word go can negatively affect patient care and nursing skills is when the teaching isn't up to scratch by qualified nurses. University should be for expanding our minds, but the authors argument that skills can only be taught at Nursing Colleges suggests a blank lack of knowledge of what a nursing degree entails.

The mixture of practical and clinical skills with theory and ideological skills that I'm learning is spot on, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to learn what a blood pressure means or how anti-pyrexics alter the state of a fever at a patient's bedside, and certainly not after I've been taking observations for 6 months. To say that academic skills will not benefit a nurse is ludicrous, and in my opinion quite offensive. The university nursing model isn't perfect, but it serves a job very well, and I don't want to lose it in favour of being a vocational doormat to medical staff.

Part of what I think will make me and my classmates good nurses is that we are taught so much outside of how to make sympathetic noises and tea, but training on the wards under expert staff will give us all of the practical skills traditionally seen in nursing.

First port in stormy seas

So I've made it!

Reading week, a chance to finally get on top of my notes and the mess that my life has slowly become is here. As a rule I'm very organised, but over the last two months there have been papers that went unread, documents that went unfiled, and journal articles that never got indexed, so this week gives me a chance to catch up with paperwork and notes, as well as some non-nursing friends.

In the last few weeks things have been crazy! Somehow I'm busy almost 24 hours a day with either nursing, nurses, or just the day to day act of living. I keep updating here as often as I can - I know all 5 of my readers enjoy what I put here, but no promises - and in the mean time can I direct you to the Disclaimer on the right of this page (and email address found there if you have any problems) and if you fancy, why not read one of my other blogs? There are links about if you fancy a look!

Once I've got everything back on track (so hopefully by Friday, giving me the weekend off!) I'll be back online much more frequently to regale you with tales of how I'm too scared to fit a nasal catheter in a dummy (not really) and how I wake up in the night convinced that I've missed a deadline (OK, so this one's true!)

Keep well, everyone, speak soon!

What a 'mare!

Until February we don't go near patients. We won't necessarily be particularly involved even then, and it will always be at the discretion of and under the supervision of, a qualified nurse. For now, there is nothing to worry about. But that hasn't stopped an early bout of worry taking over my sleeping hours.

• I'm worried that despite being able to meet the academic criteria of the course I won't be able to meet the nursing criteria.
• I'm worried that by the time placement starts i won't be competent, and I won't learn fast enough on the job.
• I'm worried that as soon as I'm on my own I'll be making mistakes, despite knowing that I won't find myself in this position until I'm able to handle it.
• I'm worried that I won't be a good nurse.

Luckily, I'm starting to learn my own behaviours pretty well by now (It makes sense, I'm nearly 23 for goodness' sake!). I know that for me worrying is part of the process of learning. When I start to subconsciously worry I know that it's a good sign, because I learn best by obsessing over material. The more worried I get the more time I spend reading nursing theory, nursing technique, and focusing on being ready in time for placement.

Here's hoping that by my reading week, when I plan to sit down and check I actually know what I'm doing, and to give the year so far a thorough going over I'll find myself to be on the path to being ready.

Wish me luck!

On the Radio

At the moment the nursing course takes up two days a week. On Mondays we have 4 hours, and then 5 on a Friday. This is decidedly not much time studying in NewUni with members of staff or lecturers. Thanks to a combination of terror and excitement at the prospect of being a nurse two days feels inadequate - after working full time and being entirely unemployed for a spell my idea of a busy week is definitely set at the 35 hour plus mark, and that means that my time outside of the University needs to make this up.

There are a variety of bits to keep us busy, and we certainly can't complain that nothing is put out for us to do. Before the end of this semester we have three deadlines to complete, each week has several hours of lectures to watch online, and there's always our SimHospital to practice in. The problem is, I'm a voracious learner at the moment. I've finished my coursework up until January, I usually get my weeks lectures finished with two days classes in hand, and I have been through "a week in the life of SimHospital" enough times to tell you which my favourite days meal from the canteen is.

Note - There isn't really a sim menu in the sim canteen for sim staff, I just think it would be a nice addition to the program.

So what's a boy to do? The simple answer should be go out and have fun, or see friends, or exercise, but in actual fact the answer is that I spend my days immersed in nursing culture. I watch the two British medical "soaps", House MD from America, and follow every article, link or story on a wide selection of general and nursing newspapers. My question is as follows, however:

Will being a nerd, will booksmarts and studying and reading loads, make me a better nurse, or one who is less able to relate the piles of nursing theory that weigh me down with the practical work that I should be focussing on when in practice? I hope that I strike a balance, and that all this work pays off, because otherwise I will be a little frustrated!

Keep well!

fishandsteak

6 Weeks in - a little more perspective

Sure, it's no Schopenhauer's Telescope, but 6 weeks is surely long enough to look back and assess a little. I think the main thing that has come of the last six weeks is that when I graduated from OldUni I wasn't finished studying by a long way. I always thought that leaving education would be a great chance for me to move on in my life, whereas I'm finally starting to realise that Education is definitely the way that I want to progress in my life. At 6 weeks in I'm already investigating the opportunities for further study once I start a practice career.

I've learned that while my confidence in academia is high, and my ability to study, to work hard, and to succeed at a purely mechanical level are there I have a long long way to go before I'll be a good nurse. I have no concerns about the practical stuff, but my worries about my emotional and interpersonal skills are pretty deep flowing. It's something I can learn, and my interest and enjoyment mean that I will push through, but it's still going to be tough.

Thirdly I think it's fair to say that I've learned that this was a really good decision. I am still so interested in everything to do with nursing, from the Anatomy and Physiology to the social and political aspects I find this course to fit everything I want. Only 3 months until placement starts and I can find out what I'm really made of!

To be the best

I'm not competitive in most areas of my life. I was always ultra-competitive on the bike, but away from that I tend not to care less. Since starting the child nursing course, however, something in me seems to have kicked in and I am beyond competitive. I suppose it's because I realised that until now I've always just scraped by academically, and nursing matters to me so I want to do well.

On Friday I met with one of the lecture staff to discuss my academic progress, and discuss a piece of work I'm aiming to submit next week. She was happy with my progress, with my approach to seminars and my constant need to answer questions in class even when I don't know the answer, but also warned me a little of the side of me that most threatens my progress on the course. I refuse to let anything go - I need to be the best, the smartest, or the 'most right' and I know that it runs a risk of driving me mad.

Academically I'm OK, I certainly have more practice than anyone else, but my lecturer warned me that maybe that might be a little bit of a negative throughout my years training as a nurse. So here is my promise to myself for the duration of this course:

• I will never handicap myself and never avoid work for the sake of that evasion.
• I will work hard and start early on every project.
• But I will also accept that sometimes the learning is more important than the grade, and I won't mistake the two.

My first assessed piece of work is tomorrow, a presentation to my class on smoking, and I think I might almost be ready!