What’s up now?

It’s the third week I feel sick :( I had to see my GP today and she described an antibiotic regimen starting today. A lot of infections mid-air now, said to be. Well at least I got familiar with the National Health care system a bit.

I already started in my second placement period in the Children ward in Tyne Side District Hospital. At the beginning I had difficulties with my mentor but I solved it out in a good way. The main problem was that my mentor assumed that we have the same kind of nursing education in Finland than nurse students in England have. I was obviously upset because the atmosphere wasn’t so welcoming. I decided to manage and clear up the situation and it turned to upside-down :)

The start has been interesting, busy (again) and it has already gave a lot. I’m very aware of that you have to be very active that you can derive profit from the ward. My shifts are long (13 hour per a day) but in that way I have to work only three days a week. Long days are exhausting but the advantage is that you can see the whole path the child goes trough. The children are from few weeks old to 16-year-old and sometimes the child with a learning disability can be 18-year-old or more.

The role of a pediatric nurse in England seems to be different than in Finland; if the situation requires the cannulation they call a doctor. Apparently they don’t have a permission to do that. So what nurses are doing is observations, guidance, and documentation and medicates the children. The amount of “paper work” is huge and it takes time. Maybe in near future they’ll get electronic systems, so they can release time from “hand documentation”.

Sorry, I don’t have any photos (yet) from the ward but I promise to add when I get!

Last weekend we had a real reason to celebrate; it was St Patrick’s Day. There were a lot of people in University campus area, in the city and…EVERYWHERE! It is a tradition to wear something green, but unfortunately I didn’t. (a lack of time to buy) Some had made an enormous effort with a face painting, clothes and stuff!

I really looking forward next weekend; I’ve got tickets for the Liverpool vs. Newcastle match! And as we know, English people are very keen on FOOTBALL so that's why the match will be awesome! Below some pics just for get in mood :D

Practical Placement No 1- DONE!

England, England, England, so crazy England. Nice, kind and easy-going people, adventures, discovering…Oh, TIME flies! Sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough hours to discover and to be honest, it is a cruel reality. Well I’ve tried to do my best to use my spare time very, very, very efficiently and so far I’ve spent a really great time :) So now something about the placement…

At first the most important thing during a day: TEA! People in England are really solving their problems with tea and biscuits. Conversation in the morning (in the hospital) starts like this: “Good morning, how are you? Would you like to have a cupper?” and of course with biscuits covered with chocolate or with some other delicates. Not a bad way to start morning if you want to gather few kilos during this exchange, haha, or +10! 

I did my first placement in the Oncology and Haematology Day Unit in Ingham Wing of South Tyneside District Hospital. There are a lot of treatments and services offered for both Oncology and haematology patients: intravenous cytotoxic chemotheraphy and monoclonal therapies, intravesicular chemo/ immunotheraphy, intramuscular chemo and other supportive therapies. Just few to mention: blood transfusion, i.v. antibiotics, i.v. bisphosphinates and immunoglobulins and also subcutaneous hormonal theraphies. And about the services offered: insertion (and of course removal) and ongoing care of skin tunneled and pheripherally inserted central lines and midlines, pheripheral and central venous sampling, bone marrow biopsies and venesections. So as you can imagine, staff has to be specialized and with a lot of experience before working in OHDU unit. The nursing staff does the holistic assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of care, what brings about a huge responsibility to them. On the other hand it gives an opportunity to carry out your expertise for the patients’ best and all are done by using strict protocols and procedures.

So what I actually did in my first practical placement except tried to understand Geordie? What actually wasn’t so hard than I assumed earlier, oh well, it really depends on the speaker. That reminded me about the funny situation with patient (original Geordie): Patient came for a chemo in the afternoon. I was going to introduce myself to him before starting pre-evaluation and the actual treatment:

Me: “Hello! I believe that we haven’t met yet?”

Patient: “Yes!”

Me: “No!”

Patient: “Yes!”

Me: “No!”

…

(The “conversation” repeated itself several times)

After that we both started to laugh because the conversation took the same form as in one of the Monty Python sketch (The British comedy group). The situation was so funny!

My role, as a student in the very first week, was to observe all the unique features and the habits (and so on) which appears in the unit. After first week I was able to do more. I have developed my language skills and I feel like I’ve more courage to speak English than earlier. The most important lesson was to learn communication with patients with cancer; to understand and support patient’s assets as entirety. I also improved my clinical skills during this period; know-how to handle different kind of (chemo) medicines, rehearsed taking blood samples and carries out the patient calls with the Hickman-line. What comes to co-operation; I’ve had opportunities to participate to different kind of clinics and I believe that those clarified the path what patient go through in its entirety.

I’m looking forward to start my second practical placement period tomorrow in children ward although I have to do shifts. That will cause some difficulties because I don’t have enough time to sleep between evening and morning shift (maybe 4-5 hours). But I decided to manage somehow: The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination!

Emergency Care in South Shields

My practical training placement is in children´s emergency care. I am doing twelve hours a day but only work 3-4 days/week. Up side is that I have more days off, but down side is that I am absolutely exhausted when I am finishing my work day. It is also quite creepy to use metro on night-time. There are many drug abusers and drunken people.

The oldest patient can be 15 years old and the youngest only few days old. In emergency room, we deal with anything from colds, the flu and stitches to car accidents and other traumas. The focus is on the specific problem or urgent need of the patient at the time of the visit. When patient comes in she or he will be triaged by staff nurse. Usually conversation starts like this: "Why are you here today? What have you done?”. Triage-nurse writes all the basic information about patient and possibly takes some observations like temperature, blood oxygen level, weight and blood pressure. After this patient goes to waiting area and a paediatric nurse practitioner or a doctor will see the patient.


What have I learned:


-I have learned for example about plastering, wound care, fractures, head injuries, diabetic, bronchiolitis, gastroenteritis and croup. 
-My English vocabulary has increased a little bit, but my speaking isn´t really fluent yet. Uh there is so many embarrassing situation when I have tried to mumble something in English.. :D


The best things are..

-People are so friendly. :)

It is weird that..

-Our department doctors are same age than me! (Some are a couple years older, but still very young.) One nurse is always kidding that she could be mom for all the doctors, because she is so “old”.  

-Here nurses wash their hands, but they use rarely hand disinfectant.

-Nurses and doctors write by hand and all the documents will be scanned to computer. I wonder   how they can read those..

-Everyone thinks that I am from Poland and nobody knows where Finland is.

           Last conversation about this topic:

*Man: Where are you from?

-I: From Finland

*Man: Ponyland?!?

-I: No from FINLAND.

*Man: I would like to visit in Ponyland.

-I: yeap… :D

I will put some pictures from the department when I have a permission to do that! See ya! :)