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.

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