Placement 2 has begun!!
I am on a hospital ward (yay!). My previous placement on an outpatient department had it's benefits, don't get me wrong, but I feel like there is so much more to learn on wards and was really jealous of everyone who got thrown in at the deep end if I'm honest.
My first shift was a 12 hour long day. I have a lot of these schedule for the next two months as they are a norm and necessity, even for a student. 12 hours is a bloody long time to be working, pretty much non stop and on your feet and it was especially intense for a first day in a new place for a student but I made it through without quitting or fainting or crying and I think that's an achievement.
I wish I could be a little more positive but it was dreadful. I didn't know what I was doing, I felt completely useless, I was knackered, my feet hurt and every second dragged. Luckily my second day was a lot better. I did an 8 hour shift and it flew by! It was extremely hectic and, at times, challenging but I enjoyed it. Hard as it was I enjoyed it, I got to talk to the patients, familiarise myself with the ward, perform a few procedures, talk with my mentor and it seemed so different than the lost zombie trotting blur that had been my first day.
I now have 2 weeks off for Easter before I go back to 24 hours a week on placement plus a few extra lessons in uni and even have a night shift booked in! Tough times ahead with more exams and coursework looming to but I am looking forward to the challenges this new term brings :)
Monday 30 March 2015
Thursday 5 March 2015
Money Troubles
**I hope this post doesn't read aggressively but if you find it does, it is only a reflection of my frustration at the situation and a tiny bit at peoples ignorance, it is not aimed at YOU nor anyone in particular, peace and love as always**
Money troubles is a phrase most student nurses are all too familiar with. Our bursary is a pittance compared to other student funding and yet a lot more time and effort is required from us than on many other courses.
In my last post, I commented on how I hadn't worked as hard as I possibly could on my first set of essays and I would just like to clarify that that was not due to lack of caring, it was not due to laziness or over confidence but due to the fact that I had so little free time to spend reading for and writing them, The reason for that is because I have to work A LOT often not getting a day off for a few weeks straight, and that means I find it hard to put time aside to really get into essay writing or research. For me researching, reading and writing for these essays on topics that, in all honesty, don't as yet interest me very much, is tough. I don't find it something that I can do a quick 10 minutes of or dip in and out of when I have a spare evening and there's washing and ironing and cooking and cleaning and emails to do.
For being a student nurse I am paid (the maximum amount that the NHS offer students) £450 a month. That's it. My half of the rent is £450 a month. That is with nothing included no gas & electric, water, internet etc. I realise if I didn't live in Brighton then rent would be lower and that money would go further, but Brighton needs nurses too and I don't think the money would go very far even if my rent was not so expensive. Now I wouldn't object to this if we were in a position where we could secure part time work and make up the rest of our monthly expenses with a paid wage. However, we spend 1 full day in university a week and up to 32 hours out in placement. The day in uni is fixed (for the most part) but the 32 hours placement could be spread across any times and any days that each placement chooses, we get maybe 2 weeks notice if we are lucky and the days change every week, for every different placement and we are expected to work whatever they tell us to with no objections. This makes it 100% impossible to have any job with contracted hours as we are rarely available to same hours or days each week and never have much notice. That is not even considering the 16 hours per week independent study that we are supposed to be doing outside of uni and placement to support our learning. We are therefore put in a position where, unless you have a wealthy family member or partner who agrees to support you financially through your training, you HAVE to do paid work every week on top of the already hefty course load, and yet you are also put in a position where securing permanent employment is impossible.
As you can expect due to this I often work evenings after doing a full day at placement or university and always on my day/days off from the course. This means I rarely have a full day off to allocate to going to the library and getting some proper work done and I do feel it is affecting my performance on the course. I want to work, I love working but right now my priority needs to be passing these 3 years and getting the most out of my course but all I can ever think about is how I'm going to cope next month.
So basically, I reckon, the NHS need to pay student nurses more OR structure the course in a way that means we are able to hold down part time work. I would say the latter option is preferable as, of course, funding is tight and while the course would still be tough it would not be so close to impossible!!
So next time someone asks about placement and I say I'm doing 24 hours this week or if I'm only doing paid work 1 day PLEASE don't tell me I've got it easy because I really haven't and the thing you are asking about is only one component of the many things that take up my time and energy.
RANT OVER.
P.S - We don't get regularly 'university holidays' either, yes most uni's get a month for Christmas, a month for Easter and about 2 and half months at summer with a load of reading weeks thrown in. But we get 6 weeks total and.. you guessed it, I'll be spending mine doing paid work!
Money troubles is a phrase most student nurses are all too familiar with. Our bursary is a pittance compared to other student funding and yet a lot more time and effort is required from us than on many other courses.
In my last post, I commented on how I hadn't worked as hard as I possibly could on my first set of essays and I would just like to clarify that that was not due to lack of caring, it was not due to laziness or over confidence but due to the fact that I had so little free time to spend reading for and writing them, The reason for that is because I have to work A LOT often not getting a day off for a few weeks straight, and that means I find it hard to put time aside to really get into essay writing or research. For me researching, reading and writing for these essays on topics that, in all honesty, don't as yet interest me very much, is tough. I don't find it something that I can do a quick 10 minutes of or dip in and out of when I have a spare evening and there's washing and ironing and cooking and cleaning and emails to do.
For being a student nurse I am paid (the maximum amount that the NHS offer students) £450 a month. That's it. My half of the rent is £450 a month. That is with nothing included no gas & electric, water, internet etc. I realise if I didn't live in Brighton then rent would be lower and that money would go further, but Brighton needs nurses too and I don't think the money would go very far even if my rent was not so expensive. Now I wouldn't object to this if we were in a position where we could secure part time work and make up the rest of our monthly expenses with a paid wage. However, we spend 1 full day in university a week and up to 32 hours out in placement. The day in uni is fixed (for the most part) but the 32 hours placement could be spread across any times and any days that each placement chooses, we get maybe 2 weeks notice if we are lucky and the days change every week, for every different placement and we are expected to work whatever they tell us to with no objections. This makes it 100% impossible to have any job with contracted hours as we are rarely available to same hours or days each week and never have much notice. That is not even considering the 16 hours per week independent study that we are supposed to be doing outside of uni and placement to support our learning. We are therefore put in a position where, unless you have a wealthy family member or partner who agrees to support you financially through your training, you HAVE to do paid work every week on top of the already hefty course load, and yet you are also put in a position where securing permanent employment is impossible.
As you can expect due to this I often work evenings after doing a full day at placement or university and always on my day/days off from the course. This means I rarely have a full day off to allocate to going to the library and getting some proper work done and I do feel it is affecting my performance on the course. I want to work, I love working but right now my priority needs to be passing these 3 years and getting the most out of my course but all I can ever think about is how I'm going to cope next month.
So basically, I reckon, the NHS need to pay student nurses more OR structure the course in a way that means we are able to hold down part time work. I would say the latter option is preferable as, of course, funding is tight and while the course would still be tough it would not be so close to impossible!!
So next time someone asks about placement and I say I'm doing 24 hours this week or if I'm only doing paid work 1 day PLEASE don't tell me I've got it easy because I really haven't and the thing you are asking about is only one component of the many things that take up my time and energy.
RANT OVER.
P.S - We don't get regularly 'university holidays' either, yes most uni's get a month for Christmas, a month for Easter and about 2 and half months at summer with a load of reading weeks thrown in. But we get 6 weeks total and.. you guessed it, I'll be spending mine doing paid work!
First lot of exams and placement, done!
Sorry I haven't posted in a while.
I actually tried to write a post a good few times but just couldn't get into the rhythm of it. I also discovered that I am not allowed to talk about placement learning in any way that could suggests people or place (in terms of staff and department obviously I would never have divulged patient information), so with that, my original plan of summarising my view on my first placement kind of went down like a phantom poop.
But anyway I did my whole first placement, it's over now! I wish I could say more but I can't. I thought I would feel a lot better going on to my second placement and that having the first one under my belt would help me feel more confident. However, I can say as much as it was not on a hospital ward, and that means that when I do start my next placement, in that environment I am going to be completely lost and unprepared and I will no longer have the safety blanket of first placement.
Anyway essays and exams are also out of the way for a couple of months.. though I am already panicking about the next lot.
The exam and the essays were polar opposites in how difficult/challenging they were. The exam was ludicrously easy, I got 100% and suspect that everyone on my course did too, it boiled down to basic maths and logic and was in a very casual environment, I even arrived early and the man running the exam said I could go in and start as long as I didn't mind people walking in while I was working, and I didn't so I did. I had finished the exam before it was even scheduled to begin!
The essays on the other hard I found really difficult. In all honesty after submitting them I did say that they absolutely were not my best work, I know I could of put more effort in so I couldn't really expect a good mark. However I think even if I had worked that bit harder I still would of found them challenging. I feel really constricted by the way essays for degree must be written, with a reference supporting every other sentence, and a justification to why your reference is relevant. I completely get it and understand the importance of it, I've just always been more of the creative than academic type and want to kind of flow with artistic and articulated ideas but have to hold that back and just try and be intelligent and well read... and I fear that I am neither. However I passed and that is really all that matters first year and it has gotten me back into understand higher education and I hope to be better prepared for the next essay!
Onward and upward :)
I actually tried to write a post a good few times but just couldn't get into the rhythm of it. I also discovered that I am not allowed to talk about placement learning in any way that could suggests people or place (in terms of staff and department obviously I would never have divulged patient information), so with that, my original plan of summarising my view on my first placement kind of went down like a phantom poop.
But anyway I did my whole first placement, it's over now! I wish I could say more but I can't. I thought I would feel a lot better going on to my second placement and that having the first one under my belt would help me feel more confident. However, I can say as much as it was not on a hospital ward, and that means that when I do start my next placement, in that environment I am going to be completely lost and unprepared and I will no longer have the safety blanket of first placement.
Anyway essays and exams are also out of the way for a couple of months.. though I am already panicking about the next lot.
The exam and the essays were polar opposites in how difficult/challenging they were. The exam was ludicrously easy, I got 100% and suspect that everyone on my course did too, it boiled down to basic maths and logic and was in a very casual environment, I even arrived early and the man running the exam said I could go in and start as long as I didn't mind people walking in while I was working, and I didn't so I did. I had finished the exam before it was even scheduled to begin!
The essays on the other hard I found really difficult. In all honesty after submitting them I did say that they absolutely were not my best work, I know I could of put more effort in so I couldn't really expect a good mark. However I think even if I had worked that bit harder I still would of found them challenging. I feel really constricted by the way essays for degree must be written, with a reference supporting every other sentence, and a justification to why your reference is relevant. I completely get it and understand the importance of it, I've just always been more of the creative than academic type and want to kind of flow with artistic and articulated ideas but have to hold that back and just try and be intelligent and well read... and I fear that I am neither. However I passed and that is really all that matters first year and it has gotten me back into understand higher education and I hope to be better prepared for the next essay!
Onward and upward :)
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