Oooohhhh, Now I feel cosmopoliten, do you ALL wear scrubs?

RNFROG3, BSN, RN · Jan 13, 2003

We had to wear navy scrubs in the ER until just recently. Now a matching scrub uniform is fine. I also wear alot of turtlenecks underneath. Nightshift gets cold and I hate being cold! It was wonderful to have tht policy changed because my first job I was allowed to wear any color and had about 30 uniforms. I started in the ER and yea you guessed it had not one navy blue uniform in my closet. I've had so much fun getting all my pretty colors back out!

semstr · Jan 13, 2003

I am very glad that I get my working clothes provided from the hospital I work for. Which is normal here.

We wear either dresses or pants with blouses. All staff has different colours, so the patients know, who is who.

Best thing about all this: I throw everything in dirty linens bag when I go home and a few days later it is back in my cupboard, washed and ironed.

I just can't imagine how it is, to go back home in my "dirty" working things.

JNJ · Jan 13, 2003

BritishStudent: I loved your post about the trousers and tunics now available. It took 30+ years from my initial complaints to get the response, but just shows it was worth all the aggravation. (PTs were in trousers, but the nurses were not allowed to wear trousers, even in OR!)

I worked ER in the 70s in a grey fitted dress with tight collar, long sleeves with, wait for it, removable buttons for laundering held in by murderous metal tags. I remember and blush at leaping onto gurneys doing CPR wondering what the heck I was showing - no pantihose in those days - black stockings and suspenders showing - ugh, ugh, ugh.

Work peds now, love those scrubs. Here in SD we choose the ones with Dolphins on them . . .

Gromit · Jan 13, 2003

Is an Enrolled Nurse a student nurse?

There are a number of other tags that are worn beyond cna, rn, lpn, lvn etc. in my area, nt is one, which means nurse tech, but is essentially a nursing student, and typically are cna-level, with extra skills or priviledges (such as foley catheter insertion, simple wound dressing changes (or some more complex), can remove ng-tubes, start an iv and so forth.

Its really more facility specific, I think.

Dr. Kate, BSN, RN · Jan 13, 2003

The closest equivalent to an enrolled nurse in the US is a LPN/LVN.

Keely-FutureRN · Jan 13, 2003

In regards to the hours for certification as a NA than it's 80 in utah with another 80 for clinicals and the state exam and separate skills test. And yes, we get to wear light blue scrubs to clinicals. :cool:

BritishStudent · Jan 13, 2003

I think the Student nurse training question needs a thread of its own!

ayemmeff · Jan 13, 2003

Originally posted by BritishStudent
I think the Student nurse training question needs a thread of its own!

:confused:

Am I being thick again?Which student nurse training question?

fyi:there is a whole forum dedicated to student nurses.

BritishStudent · Jan 13, 2003

Originally posted by Gromit
Is an Enrolled Nurse a student nurse?

I think the Student nurse training question needs a thread of its own!, but as this thread seems pupuler I will expound on the matter here, and the students forum .

First, an explaination of british nursing.

We have untrained NA's (Nursing Auxilleries) who perfom simple tasks, bed baths, toileting, moving and handleing, feeding patients, all the old stuff that nurse claim they dont have time to do any more.

Then we have RN's (Registered Nurses) who train for 3 years to be a nurse, and do all the stuff that doctors used to, essentialy, and the drug rounds and a LITTLE basic care.

The lines of demarcation between the two vary from ward to ward.

NOW.

In britain if you want to be a nurse there are three routes to become a nurse, and essentialy, they all suck big donkey doodle.

-You can be a Auxillery for a number of years and get 'seconded' onto the diploma scheme, 3 years, secondmant grant of about £20,000 american.

-You can apply to the diploma course and get a bursery, a grant for £8,000 american (huge diffrence, no?) this is mostly school leavers who got less good grades or cant afford debt.

-You can apply to the degree course and get accepted, you can then get a LOAN of $7,000 american to live on. it makes no diffrance other than your chances of getting the job, and maybe for highly accute areas.

This is where it gets worse. to register as a nurse you have about 1800 (I think) hours of ward practice time. this equates for a non-seconded student to about $3.50 american per an hour.

which is techniqely an illegaly low wage.

The ward hours are supposed to be suppervised learning, in practice its cheap labour for an overstretched National Health service.

Im a Student Nurse, Im scum and slave labour, Im not appreciated. Im going to the colonies when I qualify. :devil:

ayemmeff · Jan 13, 2003

Originally posted by BritishStudent
First, an explaination of british nursing.

We have untrained NA's (Nursing Auxilleries) who perfom simple tasks, bed baths, toileting, moving and handleing, feeding patients, all the old stuff that nurse claim they dont have time to do any more.

Then we have RN's (Registered Nurses) who train for 3 years to be a nurse, and do all the stuff that doctors used to, essentialy, and the drug rounds and a LITTLE basic care.

Rather a simplistic view if you don't mind me saying BritishStudent,and I have to say that my job as a RN involves a little more than you seem to be suggesting.I am a fully accountable professional in my own right.Nor do I *claim* to not have time to do stuff,the role of the trained nurse in the UK is expanding all the time,but patient care(or "all the old stuff" as you so eloquently put it)is still the at the heart of my job.

Originallyposted by BritishStudentare supposed to be suppervised learning, in practice its cheap labour for an overstretched National Health service.

I am going to assume that you are doing your training in one trust,BritishStudent,and not all of them?I fail to see how you can speak for every student in the country.I can assure you that all students that I mentor or teach in any capacity are fully supervised-it's my registration on the line if they are not.

Originally posted by BritishStudentIm a Student Nurse, Im scum and slave labour, Im not appreciated. Im going to the colonies when I qualify.

With an attitude like the one you are showing here,I will be surprised if they want you-but feel welcome to go and try!

BritishStudent · Jan 13, 2003

Sorry, yes it is an over simplification and yes Im very sorry, and yes its a very negitive view upon british training and the NHS, but just a few mins looking over these forums has revealed to me how difrently arranged and multi-teired non-british nursing apears to be.

Also I wasnt sure how to define nursing in less than a 6000 word essay, I mean the RCN was supposed to deliver a new definition of nursing 6 months ago and yet they, britain biggest nursing union cant even define nursing. So I just wanted to try and give them the jist of what I see RN's and NA's doing on the wards.

Please dont take it as an attack on the establishment, I love nursing, and work as an HCA, I'm not gonna flame it.

sorry?

but I will stand by my statement what the british nurse training system is terrible, inappropriate and completely insufficent. And the pay does avarrage out at £2.10 per a ward hour.

I simply belive that their must be a better way to train nurses, maybe only work on dummies in the first year, if we were learning practice compitencies and not helping doing all the bed baths in the first year, then we would be turning out superior nurses to what we are.

Im also a little bitter about having to travel for 2 hours on the train to get to my placement hospital, it sucks.

eeeee, thats more typing than I intended to sorry, but the situation really does need change.

BritishStudent · Jan 13, 2003

Its perhaps also worth pointing out that My placements are mostly at the Kent at Canterbury, their shutting down the A+E beacuse CHI rated it the worst one in the country, the trust also has the highest legal fees of any trust, KNC is also rubber stamped I belive for complete shutdown in 10 years and was given (once again not entirely sure on this point) 0 stars consecutively.

Perhaps this has... 'coloured' my experiances