I'm a brand new, shiny student nurse, beginning in March 2015. I've been on the lookout for any blogs or books relating to student nursing in the UK. I found one great book about a student midwife, called "Journal of a Student Midwife" by Ellie Ryan. It's a great book chronicling the disasters, work and worries of a healthcare student in the UK. But I have still been unable to find a student nurse book, so I thought I'd write my own to hopefully be published in three years time. Also Blood Sweat & Tea by Tom Reynolds, a paramedic in the London Ambulance Service. Again, not nursing, but still front line healthcare. His book is pretty much unaltered from his blog, which makes each entry very diary like. He writes about the time wasters and the gravely ill that are too unsure to dial 999, and sets right the drama filled, medically incorrect scenes from television shows. The second book, More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea is just as gripping.
There's two months left until I begin my degree in adult nursing. I recently had a discussion with my husband about why I chose nursing, instead of a teaching degree or business management. (OK, not business, it bores the snot out of me). I think it's to have a sense of security in life. Most things I could learn by joining the St John's Ambulance, or doing a course in CPR for £50, but I think having the knowledge to actually help people, and be calm in a crisis is a big attraction. To have a feeling of responsibility to other people, to make them comfortable and show them that someone cares. (Although the thought of having someone "crash" in front of me terrifies me).
It's been a boring and quiet ten months. I finished my access course with distinctions across the board, and was super pleased with that as I've always thought myself to be too stupid for university. I have some intelligence, but years of holding a job that required little in the way of thought process left my brain feeling a bit...muddy. Are there any brain cells left? Well there must be! I must admit I cried both when reading my acceptance letter to college, and when my online application was updated with an acceptance to my first choice university. I was a teeny bit miffed that I started in March, but eventually came around to the idea that being a mature student, the March cohort would suit me better, being all old and boring and really not into the whole freshers thing (I'll be 30 around halfway through my first year). Though I am annoyed that I never got to swipe free pens from the society booths. I remember thinking a whole ten months! Enough time to grow a baby and get back into it! But thinking twice about that I just threw myself into horse riding and trying to keep myself busy for nearly a year. Which I must have managed successfully as I have two - count 'em - two months to go until I walk into university as one of the first degree students in my family. Woop! My bursary firms are complete, loan application filled out months ago, and am now planning my future.
I've heard that there is an elective placement some time in the second year, and as I plan to work in critical care unless some other speciality jumps up and bites me on the bum, I aim to find a placement in an ITU. I'd love to get the chance to work in some remote part of the world, I've seen many programs that facilitate placements in Peru and parts of Africa, but in all reality, a working husband and two young children will not make this easy. So I have resolved to try and further my career with carefully thought out placements.
I am also planning to move soon. It needs to be somewhere close to university but also on the motorway corridor, as my husband's job as a software developer requires him to be living somewhere a bit more populated. This will be fun! I can't see me updating this until it gets a bit closer to my start date, so to my one reader, hang in there ;)
