purplemeech

Hi Grace, Sorry I didn't mean to offend with my earlier post, must have come off night duty or something that day What I meant to say is, there seems to be a big divide between hospital and university-trained nurses, with each side viewing the other with suspicion and not necessarily always recognising what the other has been through to get to where they are. I also think one of the issues that nursing (like a lot of occupations) is struggling to come to terms with is how to manage younger people in the workplace - while we younger nurses may appear not to "respect our elders" in the way older hospital-trained nurses did, I think this is the trend with younger people in general, not just in regard to nurses. This is not to say that I don't value the knowledge that older nurses have and recognise how far nursing has come as a profession due to their efforts, but I am also aware that often their practice is based on tradition, rather than evidence/research (another side-effect of going to uni I guess). I should also note that I am the daughter of a hospital-trained nurse who never went to uni or did further study, and I'm probably guilty of generalising too much about "older nurses" based our (really poor) relationship! I'm sure these sorts of discussions will be around for plenty of years to come... keeps life interesting

I am a grad too and one of my friends has had a similar experience to yours - bullied in her first rotation, and copping it again in the second. Our DON was quite supportive when she was made aware of the situation, and the bully was basically told to resign or she would be sacked, however we have found that she has still managed to get a job across the road in one of the other hospitals that is run by the same organisation which runs ours. The ward my friend is on now is not much better, and she is basically biding her time until the end of the year when she will be able to move to another hospital (as it seems you cannot get a job in Queensland unless you have completed a grad program). I think one of the major things about being a grad is that the uni's tell you how good you are because you have all this scientific evidence/knowledge, and they tell you how you can change nursing and the world etc etc, and then you find out that it's not so. I think also older staff (especially the ones without uni qualifications) sometimes feel threatened by us, and that's when the bullying happens - so they can continue to feel superior. The only easy way out of this situation is to leave, and I feel for you being in a country area and not having the employment options that we do in the city. It must be incredibly difficult. But don't give up just yet - do your time, get the grad program under your belt and then reconsider your options (at least, that's what I'm doing....). Stay brave and best of luck - you're not alone.

I haven't read the fine print on EB6 so I can't really comment on it... would be interesting to know what conditions have been lost (if any) in exchange for $$, particularly for rural nurses (who got screwed around a few years ago in the NSW nurses pay rise). As for Beattie, I still can't imagine QLD being better off under Springborg. But I must admit I am biased, having just moved from NSW and after living under frogface Carr and then Iemma, Beattie is my hero (albeit with a slightly tarnished halo at present)! In response to Bethem's suggestion about all nurses being paid the same, I think that might be a bit too simplistic in a country as large and varied as ours. Should nurses in Sydney be paid the same as the ones in Townsville, or Broome, or Central Australia? Personally I think if we were to talk about true wage parity, it would have to be indexed against cost of living (and I'm not just talking about costs of housing for people in capital cities, but petrol costs and distances between towns/regional centres for people in the country).

Hi Gail, I always found those legal/ethical asssignments the most difficult when I was at uni... I do have fuzzy recollections of lecturers droning on about the 4 principles of healthcare ethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice), which I thought were basically just fancy ways of saying "do what's good for the patient"! The ANMC also has a code of ethics for nurses: http://www.anmc.org.au/?event=-1&query=website/Publications/Codes%20of%20Ethics%20and%20Professional%20Conduct%20for%20Nurses%20in%20Australia If all else fails, I have found that lecturers really like it when you mention "scope of practice", and talking about the relevant ANMC guidelines.... Hope that helps :)

You could also try Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/ It finds journal articles, not just webpages. The only problem is, it often links to sites where you need to be a subscriber to access the full-text article. But it's useful to find articles initially, and then you can try and access them via your uni library/databases.

Hi there, just to add a little more to this discussion... if you're not already aware, Sydney Uni has stopped taking new students for their undergraduate nursing course, and many staff have now moved on to other uni's (which are picking up the slack to maintain the number of nursing graduates coming out of NSW/Sydney). The current undergraduate students that I know who still need to complete their degrees are pretty damn angry about it (rightly so). Just be careful with UTS's graduate entry program, as I believe they simply put you straight into the 2nd year of the normal undergraduate program. I have met people who started this program but dropped out because they didn't have the basic knowledge to cope with 2nd year. But it may have changed since then. I have also heard good things about graduate entry at ACU (Australian Catholic Uni). It may also be useful (when you find a course you like) to look up the faculty handbooks which are usually on the website of each uni, to see what the clinical component of each course is like.

Thanks Gwynith, good advice (I think I'm overly optimistic about my new job... )

Thanks Gwynith for your advice - I did do late/early's when I was at uni so I am well aware of how horrendous they can be (I had a sadistic facilitator doing our rosters) however I didn't realise about the patterning of shifts for people with 10 hour breaks. I am a bit of a night owl so a week of early's is actually about as appealing as a week of late/early's!! Ally, I'm at (*mystery Brissie hospital*), starting in about a month's time. Congrats on getting into your grad program - what area are you going into? And are you taking the 8 or 10 hour shift break? A pretty hard decision for new grads I reckon, especially if you're like me and haven't worked full-time shift work before... could make a lot of difference.... Cheers

Hi all, I am a newbie here but thought I'd give this forum a go to see if anyone had an advice for me. I just finished my degree a few weeks ago and moved to sunny Queensland where I'm about to start my new grad. The hospital wants to know if I want to retain my right to a 10-hour break between shifts (as per the Award), or go with 8-hour breaks (presumably so I can do late/early's and have a bit more flexibility). I'm not really a huge fan of late/early's, however I only live around the corner so I won't be travelling far to and from work. So I'm not sure which option will make my life easier, especially since I have never worked full-time shift work... Any advice greatly appreciated!!

Hi Tamtaw, I have just finished the 3-year Bachelor of Nursing at UTS Kuring-gai. I can't tell you too much about the accelerated course because I didn't do it - are you an EN already, or have you done some other degree? I know some EN's who did the RN conversion course didn't like the fact that they were forced to do summer school (I think they had to pay extra for this), although there were rumours they were dropping this component (not sure if they have). I have also met an RN who did the accelerated course for people who already have a degree (in another area), and dropped out because the course completely skips first year, which means you don't get any basic knowledge before starting 2nd year subjects. This lady was completely lost and ended up dropping out and doing her degree at ACU. But having said all that, the 3-year Bachelor of Nursing is a good one! :) Kuring-gai is a nice campus, if you have a car (the public transport is terrible). There is a childcare centre there too if you need one. The staff seem to be very understanding of students with children, and are usually more than happy to give extensions for assignments etc. There is also a lot of support for people who find writing assignments difficult, or who have been away from study for a while. The nursing courses have lots of clinical too. Hope that helps, best of luck!