She was annoying.

My third year placement is on an acute mental health ward for male patients under the age of 65 years old. It’s my first acute placement, and I was nervous, as I had no idea what to expect. But it went well. This is the first placement I’ve had in a while where I feel comfortable and confident in what I’m doing and don’t feel ‘lost’.

However it wasn’t all smooth sailing. There’s three sisters on the ward, and I was on the same shift as one of them for my first two days. The second day was really bad. The day before I had spent most of my time reading policies rather than getting to know the ward structure, so when I was next on shift, I had no idea that there was a staff allocation sheet and that I had been given a few tasks to do. So when the sister noticed I wasn’t doing one of my tasks, she criticised me in front of my mentor, and in front of other staff at different times.

She’s a third year!! I thought she was a first year!

Do you not know how to make a hospital bed; what about infection control?

blah blah fucking blah.

She was annoying. I almost cried because she was putting me down. Excuse the language in this post, but bitch, I should’ve been finished by now, I’ve had a tough year, you know NOTHING about me, so why make this assumption that I have no knowledge and have no idea about what I’m doing? I haven’t made a hospital bed in TWO years, and you can’t expect me to know everything just because you’ve been working in the same job for 15 centuries.

Thankfully she’s just one irritating blip on an otherwise straightforward placement. My mentor is nice and really helpful, and he had a chat with me the following day, which helped ease my thoughts and feelings of inadequacies. I hope if I’m successful in this course and become a senior nurse one day, I don’t become so harsh like that.

I love old people, and I always get outraged when I hear negative stories regarding the welfare of elderly people. I think I will want to work in Older People Services.

Aargh, life has gotten in the way of lots of things since last year. Once again I’m moving cohorts (which I’m gutted about because I quite liked the people in the group I was in) and I’m due to start my third year next month. Don’t wanna go into details, but let’s just say I had my view of mental illness and what it’s like on acute wards refreshed.

Elective

On my first day the weather was terrible. It was raining heavily and it was really cold. I rang the buzzer to be let through into the mental health centre building and was greeted by the student allocation nurse. He welcomed me in and quickly (and I mean quickly) introduced me to the rest of the team that was sitting in the office at the time. He then allowed me to put my bag and jacket down and proceeded to show me around the building.

I have to say that one thing I hope to remember if I ever do qualify, is not to bombard someone with too much information when they’re new to a place. Think about it – you’re nervous, worried about whether you’ll find the place/get there on time, thinking what will everyone else’s expectation be of me? So while my mind was in a daze, I was being told where the toilets were, where I can warm my lunch, and being introduced to other people working in the building. And when you’ve got a memory as crap as me, this wasn’t looking good. I guess what I would’ve done differently is allowed that person to gather their thoughts, have a sit down in a quiet room or something (well, maybe ask if they wanted to do that) and then proceed with the grand tour. He was a nice enough guy anyway, very easy-going.

As it was my first day, I didn’t get up to much. I just sat around in the office until the daily medical review at 9:15am where the multidisciplinary team discuss service users who need to be discussed or who are ‘critical’ (in the sense that they have recently been referred, are on early discharge or the circumstances surrounding that person causes the team some concern). After this meeting (which went on for about nearly two hours as it was a Monday), I returned to my desk, and mainly just read through the induction pack I was given.

Towards the evening, the guy who was the student allocator said he was going to make a phone call to a service user (either he had missed his appointment or was just due for a telephone call that day).  I was initially scared that he wanted me to talk to the service user (afterall, it was only my first day) but thankfully I just sat and watched how to spoke to the person on the phone.

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10th August 2010 – Haven’t logged on in quite some time, and this was sitting in my drafts, so I thought I’d publish it.

this is what happens when you click ‘publish’ too soon

I forgot to add, I like giving people their depot injections.

That’s right. I like sticking needles in people’s arses.

I was incredibly apprehensive when the thought of giving a depot arose. I mean, you’re stabbing someone. Okay, it’s supposed to be for their own good, non-maleficence beneficence and all that, but it scared me. But now, with a few practices, reading up on injection technique and even writing my own personal assignment on anti-psychotic depot injections in the community, I’m more confident.

Before, if a nurse had said “Hey you, give Mr. Rogers his 200mg of Clopixol I.M. as prescribed on his chart” I would have been like “err…okay?”  (i.e. I probably would’ve admitted I don’t know what I’m doing or at least been incredibly nervous beforehand). But now if a nurse said that to me, I’d be like “grab me an alcohol swab and the sharps bin please”.

Wow, just now, I thought, in a year or so I’m going to (hopefully, HOPEFULLY) be a qualified mental health nurse. Can you imagine? It feels like just a few months ago (like at least 8 months or something) I started my first year. I remember getting ready for my first day on placement (bearing in mind I’ve had no prior care experience before uni), getting changed, wearing my name badge, making sure my hair and make-up was okay and taking a picture on my camera to document it. I should’ve taken a picture on the first day back in my second year, and for my third year, and a pic of if/when/omg I graduate. I look so big in that picture I took. I guess walking up and down the wards helped lose a few pounds

it’s all coming up

I suck so badly. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even updated my personal handwritten diary. Anyway, I finished my community placement a week or two ago, sad to leave actually, I was really enjoying my time there and I was just getting to know the clients. I’m glad it was a really long placement though, it would’ve sucked and been pointless if I’d've only been there for four weeks or something.

Currently revising for an upcoming exam that no-one is looking forward to. Well actually, as long as we read up the mental health act well, then we’ve pretty much got it in the bag as it’s worth 50% of the marks, but there’s no point demonstrating to the marker that you have an amazing photographic memory of the MHA if you’re unable to explain and gain 25 marks each in the subsequent two questions that will come up in the exam. Oh, and I have an assignment due next month and an elective placement in my area with the home treatment team. Busy, busy, busy, up until the 18th of December. That’s right, we don’t finish (why am I writing ‘we’ instead of ‘me/I’?) until one week before Christmas. Though I’m sure in my first year we didn’t finish placement until two or three days before the big 2-5, so I don’t think it’s all bad.

I can see myself working with elderly people. I seem to get on well with my elders, and they deserve the greatest care they can get when they’re at that stage in their life. If I had the chance to choose two elective places to go to, my second choice would’ve been an elderly-based MH ward near where I live. Just to compare here and the placement area at uni.

Anyway, not a lot to update on. I don’t know if that’s because I’m too lazy to think and type my experiences, whether I’ve forgotten most of it or if I’m just still a bit nervous incase I type something identifiable. Meh.

I’m in lectures tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, free next week, then the week after lectures for half the week, then the week after that…. exams and assignment submission time!!11!! So that should be great fun. Hopefully I’ll pass those and the resit I have to do, and then I can proceed happily into my third and final year.

MY THIRD AND FINAL YEAR.

What a scary thought.

blanket statement coming up

I think I definitely want to work in the community or with the elderly.

It’s not that I’ve had a bad day, it’s just the times I spend on an adult acute ward near my CMHT placement depresses me. Because I don’t feel like part of the team and I don’t seem to be learning anything.

It’d be interesting to read back on this and see if where I end up working is where I think I’d be happiest.

…

As a post-script, I don’t want to write up about my experiences in the community just yet. I doubt anyone connected with my current placement or with me at uni would be reading this, but still. I’m keeping little notes here and there on paper, so at a later date I’ll reflect back on this placement.

All I will say is:

dogs, smoking, depot, arses, shouting, boring, desk-stealing, darts.

not too bad

I don’t think I actually mentioned what my current placement is in my last post. At the moment I’m with a Community Mental Health Team near my uni (like 30 minutes away on public transport). I’m surprised with how it’s going – before, I had slightly negative connotations of community mental health teams – not in terms of how they help service users and their effectiveness, but rather I thought being with CMHT would be dull, boring, uninteresting. But it’s not too bad, you know. I’m enjoying it so far, and I especially like going out on home visits. In fact there are occasions where I just long to go out on visits – today I just spent the day stuck in the office doing uni work. It’s like, there are occasions when catching up on uni work during placement is cool, but other times I don’t wanna be doing work that I can easily do in the comfort of my my room during placement.

And it’s especially dull when I haven’t even got access to a computer. The CPN’s office is tiny – four desks but they’re usually occupied. And sometimes it’s hard to ask for one of the staff to log me in because they’re already logged into their own computer. But I’ve managed to get my own log-in details now (until I finish this placement), so…yeah.

But seriously, I’m enjoying my placement at the moment. The only niggles I have is that I’m halfway through (or rather 2/3 through my second year) and I haven’t gotten one single skill signed off yet. And there’s several skills that have to be completed before you can proceed into the third year. I’m just panicking a tiny little bit. I’m not very assertive in the first place, plus also…I dunno. I’m just hoping I can pass all that I need to to proceed into my final year of training.

It’s so weird though, today I felt really at ease. Usually on my way to placement, I feel nervous, wonder what the day holds in store for me and I’m generally just in a nervy kind of mood. Yet today I felt kind of relaxed, I wasn’t nervous, apprehensive or anything. It was almost like I was confident. Nearly. I don’t know if that’s because of my mood in general, because this placement area and the staff have been so good or if it’s just my own confidence growing as my training progresses.

Either way, I hope it continues.

heavy eyes

Placement is going okay, kinda enjoying myself. I’ve been spending some time with Community Support Team (kinda like a secondary care service for supporting people with mental illness in the community. There’s no emphasis on medication or the mental illness itself, it’s just like a support network really. It’s quite cool.

Anyway I’m hoping to go back there next week or so; I went out with one of the senior support workers and met one of his clients who said he’d enjoyed himself on our little trip to a bakery/cafe. That was lovely, and I hope to go next week to have like a continuity with service users. One thing that I don’t like when I’m out with the community/going out with a worker for outreach is that I see a service user once and then that’s it. I’m unlikely to see them again, so I can’t see what progress (if any) they may make and I only get to see a snapshot of them and their life. Going back to CST would be great especially as I don’t finish this placement till September (I think).

I’m quite tired so this entry doesn’t feel as ‘solid’ as my other entries. I dunno why I’d be concerned about that, but I’ve just got disjointed thoughts about this placement that I want to note down but I’m too tired/not bothered to untangle those thoughts into a logical order that’ll make sense to me when I read back at a later date.

Anyway I’ve got a study day tomorrow and it’s in uni. We’ve got a journal we have to complete every two weeks, and I have to complete it before I go to bed. But I might just complete it during my lunchreak tomorrow if the reflection/supervision lecture is in the afternoon and if I’m too tired to do it tonight.

But yeah, placement’s not too bad. Though I have spent quite a bit of time just stuck in the office reading policies etc to while-away the time. That’s one thing I don’t like about the community – it’s kinda sedate with not a lot to do. I guess that’s good in a way because you’re supporting people in the community, in their ‘natural’ environment, so there’s less of a need to do something for someone. If that makes any kind of sense. But I prefer the ward environment – more busy and ‘hectic’ and there’s usually always something to do. Plus it’s like you’re in your comfort zone. This may sound bad but, being on a ward it’s a familiar territory, so you know what to expect what to do in certain situations etc. But in the community, although there’s more flexibility, it’s more ‘up in the air’.

Wow, I’m really not making any sense whatsoever here; think I’ll call it a night!