I'm gonna get fired soon

Hopefully not, but chances are I could guess the reason why if I did.


Why do some nurses find the overwhelming urge to be a bitch to everyone that they don't work with (as well as their patients)?

And it's especially the HCAs... because the SNs are able to stand up for themselves and you wouldn't dare have a go at a SR/CN, especially a SSR/SCN, or even Matron.

What do you want me to do when the saline hasn't been hanged? I'm not allowed to handle her cannula (unless I remove it). Do you want me to take her back to A&E, get a nurse to hang the saline then bring her back up? Waste my time and yours? You want me to hang the line, and because I'm not trained, give her a massive air embolis and kill her? (Don't worry folks, I'm far more competent than that)

No? Then stop looking at me like I'm incompetent.



End rant.

The Wisdom of the NHS

My trust, in its infinite wisdom, have decided to put me on a 2 day study day to provide a "basic knowledge" base for daily practice - measuring and recording vital signs of patients.

I've even been given homework. Label the basic anatomy of the chest and respiratory system, what is pyrexia, hypothermia, how should I take a pulse. (This grade A in A Level biology might finally pay off for me)

This would sound great, if I haven't already been doing it every shift for the last 4 weeks since I started. Make that 9 weeks by the time I start the study day.

Don't even get me started on the fact I have to do a study session for HCG tests, but curiously, not for ECGs...

Another Day...

We have a patient sitting on the floor and shouting for a nurse.



After he's decided to jump off the trolley and take the mattress and bedding with him.

Now, nurses generally don't like things on the floor, just generally (especially patients), but in this case, we let it slide.

Welcome to the NHS.

HCA got back

More like HCA got back pains...

Clinical induction is possibly the most boring thing ever. No offence to the people that have to do the sections, but it's tediously boring and you're just throwing facts at us. It's like being at school, but so much worse, because 1) we don't particularly care and 2) we don't care because barely any of it applies to us or will be of use to us.

However, manual handling today taught me that I'm likely to do my back in because I'm young and because we apparently do everything wrong when it comes to manual handling in A&E. Drag lifts, carrying stuff, not using the hoist.... ever (which was embarrassing when one of the immunology nurses told me we kept it in one of the toilets) and not having slide sheets and handle extensions. I could blame the last one on CAU/ITU/Ward but I can't, because we don't have the equipment. Or at least I've not seen it.


On different note, midwives have some of the best stories ever. (Admittedly if you're pregnant, they're not)

Oh My God

Clinical induction has to be the most boring thing I've ever had the misfortune of sitting through in my entire life.

I'd rather be working. At least it's a 3 day week (unlike the 5 day induction), and I'd be able to get my ucas sorted as well.

It's Day 7...

...in A&E.

I managed to do my UKCAT last week, 650 average, lower than last year (675) but I suppose it'll have to do.

I've been at work for 2 weeks now, and there's been some interesting stuff going on, notably we declared a major incident for something something something*, a prolapsed bowel (which I can only describe as.... intestines falling through the arse. literally) which the surgeons didn't believe. Yes, they didn't believe the bowel had prolapsed. In fairness, I didn't believe it, nor had our middle grade seen it before.

But yes, all in all, work is good. Though I didn't like the 3 long days in a row I've just had. Translation - a 12hr shift (8am-8pm) on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I want to send off my UCAS next week, but stupid trust induction next week. Oh well, a reference from one of the consultants and an academic one from my (former) head of sixth will have to get done during my induction week instead. Arse.

*Nothing personal - just if I said you probably could work out where I work and who I am. Not so sure I'm that comfortable doing so yet. Though probably major incident is enough to work that out - get googling!

Results Pt2

So I realise that nobody actually reads this blog. Hmph.

However, this blog is the black box of where things are likely to go wrong. Yes folks, I reckon it's all likely to go downhill from here - because I enter the workforce, and the mighty workforce of the NHS, right at the bottom.

But I have began to consider my future if I fail to get anywhere this year.

Looking back over the past year, I can see where I may have gone wrong (though I still don't know how good my old personal statement is, help anyone?). Ultimately I have decided that this is another shot at medicine, and unless something really changes, my last chance. I'm going to university regardless of medicine in 2010 entry.

I've learnt this year, looking at how things turned out for me, my mates going through results day, phoning unis and clearing, that my plans shouldn't be as fixed as I have them in my head currently.

Yes, I've seen quite a few people get into Bristol, Newcastle and Sheffield with lower grades than their offer (not for medicine), but some weren't as lucky.

Which is probably why I think I'm likely to be able to stomach graduate medicine. Odd, I know, but normality is overrated. Plans change, my plans, goals, priorities, view on the world; everything changes. I think if I entered for another degree, everything would change. It's hardly an unreasonable assumption to make. I think I would invest myself in my new subject, and medicine would fall away.

Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just sleep deprived, still feeling rough from results day drinking and then some, feeling cynical or just crazy.