Yuku free message boards

I think it's a much more stable career at the moment in the current climate, yes the health field is suffering worldwide but you'll always need nurses and there will always be a job for almost every graduate if they work hard enough so yeah, nursing is on alot of peoples horizons at the moment. Sometimes not for the best reasons. I have known students who simply do nursing here for the bursary (we get our tuition paid by the national health service and a 6 grand bursary per year for working in hospitals for our training, we don't have to pay it back) eventually they end up getting weeded out during training or caught out before, you simply have to WANT to be a nurse if your gonna commit to the training.

This year the application process was tough going. Last year I had received an offer from a local university for nursing for this september starting providing that I finish college this year. They later rejected that offer claiming it was a "admin error" and they cannot defer offers for a year anymore when really alot of girls got their differed offers revoked because numbers were so massively high this year in nursing applications they could simply not reserve places for other students. It's sad, but I'm so happy I got a few offers from other universities and they were very thorough in the interviewing days that they made damn sure that the place they were giving on the course to a student was to a student who was fit for the job, and not going about it for other reasons.

I know one girl who's dropped out already during her first year, she went to community college with me last year, I think she regarded nursing as some easy-paid fabulous profession unlike other roles such as the NA and I'm pretty sure she had anticipated cerebral meetings with doctors and paper pushing for the next 30-40 years. When she was thrown onto her first placement back in January she wound up on a stroke/rehab ward the ward was understaffed so instead of the ward sister looking over her (which she can't do all the time anyway) she was co-mentored by a senior NA and was litterally up to her eyeballs in +$@! and pee for the first few weeks of her placement. Reality check!

Sometimes I wish University prospectus books for the health courses would come with a scratch and sniff-type page for nursing to show students what they're really getting into LMAO!!!!

And my2divas it's nice to see you're cutting back I think it's important for nurses to step back every now and then. Up the hospital I literally see nurses burn out before my very eyes and then end up going off sick with stress and whatnot. They work their asses off! And you're sleeping schedule is as messed up as mine for some reason the odd 1 or 2 night shift occurred TWO weeks back and my sleeping schedule is still mental because I have been off uni ad literally been hanging around the house. I get to chose when I work and when that happens you can't be bothered to ring up and book shifts LOL so I've been having say a 4-5 hour nap during the later afternoon and usually 1 or 2 hours early early morning. So I'm up all night. I don't mind though, I just think I'm gonna work nights this summer cause I'd rather be lazy during the day anyway lol

^^ Well you see the thing is the teaching may be more modern here but the principles of nursing school and such are the same. In England you can still do the diploma, and get registered on the diploma, we still have to do uniform and have to do like 47/48 weeks a year or something as well as 40-something hours per week when we are in placement. Nusing schools here are very much old-school and still want us to learn just about everything we can INSIDE a hospital, but when it comes to the academic side they are a lot more up to date and we learn pharmacology and other things now that they didn't deem very rellevent to nurses back "in the day" so to speak.

As for my residence it's still University-ran residence it's just the school bought the old hospital as centre for the Health & Social care faculty. Over half of it is teaching and clinical labs whilst the other half is residence. Physios, Midwives and Paramedics etc mostly get taught there but mostly student nurses live there as there is so many of us. It's not a working hospital anymore, there is a mental health hospital (smaller one) just next to the campus and the only way you would mistake our school for still being a working hospital is if you were to drive around back and discover the laundry trucks - our school still has a hospital laundering facility as the mental health hospital next door hasn't got the capacity for it. That's about it! Only for a year though am I living there, I'm either going to move into a house next year for the last 2 years of my course or find out which hospital I'm doing my placements in next year and live in their accomodaton on-site, since it's only like £100 per month LOL

Yes, midwives are the leading pracitioners here for childbirth, even high-dependancy ones in some cases. Every pre and post woman and child units and clinics are midwife-led and especially deliver/labour wards. Midwives are even trained into ultrasound here for baby scans. You get midwives that are trained post grad in operative skills and such to assist in C-Sections, and midwives trained for high-dependancy births. In some instances you need a doctor, but not most of the time. You name it, in regards to childbirth a midwife is part of it. Even homebirth (which is encouraged here) midwives are alone.

You can do a Midwifery degree which is 3 years long the same as the Adult Nursing degree (which I'm doing) but schools prefer midwives to have nursing as a backup plan, so you can do the Adult Nursing degree and after that do a midwifery diploma topped-up part time over 18 months. If you do the Adult Nursing diploma which is still popular here girls leaving nursing school prefer to do midwifery degree part time (20 months) so they can convert their nursing diploma in a degree in Nursing AND Midwifery. It's complicated but, back your original question, yeah, midwivers are REALLY common HAHAHA.

Birth is the most natural thing on earth, from my experience watching american programs on Home & Health, they turn it into a big drama! Homebirths are encouraged, epidurals are not, etc.... It's all gotta be o-natural cause it benefits the baby and the mother in the end. With hardly ANY medical intervention. I'd love to be a midwife, the reason why I first started going to school and leaning towards being a nurse or midwife over being a doctor was because I wanted to deliver babies, but I see myself now in High Dependancy nursing like ER/A&E or CDU. So we'll see what the future brings!

The thing I love about the ER is that I am continually learning. Traige is a bit mind blowing because a perfectly fine patient can come in and 10 minutes later crash in the waiting room. It's really a challenge between myself the other NA and the triage nurse who to prioritise, I can't wait though until I am a student nurse to ASK ASK ASK about EVERYTHING. As an NA I don't really have the time to learn the theory behind what I am doing, even now as I am doing in-house phlebotomy training, I have governed by the actions that I am doing and obligated to do them, so I don't really have the time to ask why this has happened or why I am doing something, and tbh not alot of people would wanna spend their time helping me either. I am thankful that I have made good friends with Medics at the hospital, even those just finished medical school, they wanna help me and I wanna help them and sometimes if we have a bit of time later in the staff room we'll talk over some of the stuff we have been doing.

And as for epidurals, they can cause alot of problems, so whats the point? Allbeit the risk is minimal. LORD knows why they are pushing epidurals on women out there - oh thats right I bet anaesthetists get $$$$$ for it. If a woman wants one here, whatever, they can have it. If they have complications in their pregnancy and don't think they can endure childbirth, they can request a C-Section early on too (weather doctor will do it is another thing) but they certainly don't pressure women onto it. Pethadine or Diomorphine is the usual second option for pain relief during labour (midwives have the right to administer this as they choose without doctors consent) but most women stick with Entonox (first option and almost every woman uses this) throughout labour and birth.

There's alot of staph infections around our hospital (you woulden't believe so since they are actually, despite media saying otherwise, very clean) and thankfully in community bays and wards there is always 3-6 cubes for such cases. C-Diff and MRSA are the big ones here. Will never be able to shake off the smell of a C-Diff bedpan for as long as I live lol VERY offensive indeed, and the medication they are on for C-Diff I can only say kinda makes it worse somtimes? Anyone get what I mean?