Grandy

When I was a second year student I was on a placement in an adult surgical ward in a medium size suburban hospital. I arrived early for my day shift, it was before 7am and we were milling around the nurses station waiting to receive handover from the outgoing night shift staff. One of the night nurses had a patient on a bedpan, it was an elderly gentleman with a hx of NIDDM and a very bad ulcerated wound on one of his feet and some necrotic tissue on his toes that the surgeons wanted to excise. I had looked after this gentleman the previous day and can clearly remember the serous exudate dripping from his foot as I assisted him in the shower. Well the night nurse steps into his room to check on him to see if he is done with the pan while we are waiting at the nurses station for handover. Next thing she calls out "Code". Even though I was a second year student I had a background in prehospital care and had managed a few cardiac arrests, I was well drilled in CPR and emergency procedures. From where I was in the nurses station I grabbed the arrest trolly (I believe in the US it is called the 'crash cart') and pushed it to the patients bedside. Night nurse had her knees up on the patient's bedside and was doing chest compressions. She was an older nurse and she looked clearly stressed and having difficulty doing compressions. So I simply stepped up and said it's ok, take a break and let me do the compressions for you. She gladly handed the compressions over to me. Back in those days we were taught to measure the sternum to ensure proper hand plancement on the lower half of the sternum. So I kneeled up on the bed, leaned over him, measured up his sternum and began pumping away. Within minutes the room was full of people, at the time it surprised me how many people turned up to have a look. Once a code is broadcast over the paging system every medical student, resident, registrar, nurse administrator etc turns up. My Clinical Facilitator turned up as well and when the nurse from the ICU team finally took over the compressions from me my facilitator gave me a pat on the back and said job well done. She mentioned it in my report and my lecturer at university congratulated me on doing so well. My fellow students were stoked that I got to do CPR and wanted to know all about it. Well the patient died unfortunately, it was an asystolic arrest so he was probably laying on that bedpan with no pulse for too long before being discovered. But I have to admit it was a great learning experience. After the arrest I got to assist in laying out the body and preparing to take him to the mortuary. His relatives turned up at the hospital about an hour later expecting to visit him and the Nurse Unit Manager had to break the news to them, I can remember them crying. Relatives were allowed to spend some time with him and then the wardsmen came to take him to the mortuary, of course standard protocol is that an RN always escorts the body to the mortuary and signs the mortuary book to confirm the body arrived safely without being dropped or bruised or tampered with. So I got to go along with the wardsmen and the RN to the mortuary. I assisted the wardmen to transfer the body onto the drawer of the refridgeration unit and watched as he was slid inside and the door slammed shut. I was thinking how yesterday I was having conversation with this man and now here I am watching his mortal remains being slid into the mortuary refridgerator. It was a real learning experience, even as someone who had seen a few cardiac arrests before, this was the first time I had seen one in a hospital. To follow the whole process from CPR to termination of resuscitation, to shrowding the body to escort to the mortuary was very interesting. Let me encourage nursing students to assert yourselves, remember that you are in hospital to learn so make the most of the opportunities you have and be proactive. Don't be scared to step up and ask if you can do some compressions. If it is your patient and they do not survive then remember that providing dignified and professional post mortem care, such as washing, shrowding and escorting the body is an important part of nursing care and our final duty to that patient. It is a good thing to learn as a student as I did so it does not hurt to ask to be involved, involvement and gaining experience is what you are there for.

If you go and earn a PhD in Nursing then you have every right to call yourself a doctor because you would actually have a doctoral degree, and therefore have reached the pinnacle of your profession. In that case you would have more right to call yourself doctor than most medical practitioners do, remember medicine is only a bachelors degree.

In the clinical environment nobody could be bothered to read a 30 page care plan let a lone actually write one. It seems that there are still some nursing schools where academics are completely out of touch with the real world where real nurses practice.

The only time I use Registered Nurse after my name is when I am signing patient notes. If I have a student with me and they are doing some documentation I will usually get them to sign as a student nurse year 2 or whatever year they are in, for example Joe Bloggs SN2 (UTS). I have never used RN when signing my name outside of work, mainly because it would seem weird and the lay public probably would not know what it meant.

Depends on the school you go to I guess. I went to a small and friendly nursing school, there were only 70 students in my cohort and we had an excellent student to teacher ratio. All of our lecturers, tutors and clinical facilitators knew us by our first names and we knew them on a first name basis too. Our lecturers including our course co-ordinator even used to attend social functions and dinners that we organised and they would go to the pub with us and have a few beers at the end of semester or end of clinical practicum. It was great, we were a close knit bunch and I miss my university days.

When I was a nursing student I came across one or two nurses like this. My belief is this, such nurses lack self confidence and are threatened by the presence of students, they compensate by trying to belittle or intimidate. In a few years time, after you have graduated you will probably be running rings around this moron. Don't be intimidated by her instead you should pity her. The most important thing is that your facilitator thinks you're great and that is good because after all it is your facilitator who will probably be writting your final assessment. Persevere and take this experience under your belt and learn from it, think about how differently you will treat students when you are an RN.

I have no idea what an "SNF" is, must be an abbreviation unique to the USA. But as far as AEDs are concerned I would strongly aqdvise you to check out the American Heart Association website for some excellent resources, perhaps you could printo off some pages and discreetly leave them laying where your supervisor's eyes may see them. http://www.americanheart.org/

Typically the biological sciences are the courses that most nursing students find the toughest, especially those students who have not studied very much science previously. From my experience physiology was much tougher than anatomy as it requires you to get your head around some concepts that are a bit more abstract. Anatomy is basically a lot more straight forward and it is essentially learning structures and names. My advice is to form a study group with some of your student colleagues, try to find 3 or 4 other students who enjoy the subject and are good at it and join with them. Never make study groups with good friends because you will spend more time with chit-chat than study! Best of luck.

Hello everybody, I have posted an article below that I found interesting, a surgeon seems to have a lot of issues with the fact that nurses are now trained in the university system and not under the old apprenticeship method. This article was published in The Australian on August 25, 2007. The Australian is a national newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and is distributed throughout Australia and other countries. I thought about posting this thread under the Australian nursing forum but I thought that this article raises issues that are relevant to nurses around the world. These issues include the relationship between the nursing profession and the medical profession and the dominance of the medical discourse in health care. Please see read the article below and share your feedback. :) Read article in its entirety. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22301244-5012694,00.html

I could not be bothered getting out of bed for $11.00/hour!

Anatomy and physiology and the human life sciences in general can be a big challange, but they can also be a lot of fun. If you use the Marieb text I would advise you to make use of the MYA&P that comes with it, it has loads of online interactive quizes, etc. that you may find useful. Here are some other sites not only A&P but are Bioscience related that I hope some may find helpful: Biochemistry online from the University of Arizona: http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biochemistry/tutorials/chemistry/main.html A very good Cell Biology site from the University of New South Wales: http://cellbiology.med.unsw.edu.au/ A&P of the eye: http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/index.html Radiographic anatomy: http://www.netanatomy.com/RA/ra_frame.htm A good web anatomy site from the University of Minnesota: http://www.msjensen.gen.umn.edu/webanatomy/ Fluids, Homeostasis, Metabolism and Protein sythesis online tutorials from University of Sydney: http://www3.fhs.usyd.edu.au/bio/student_tutorials.html Cell Biology, Microbiology and Immunology: http://www.cellsalive.com/ The biology place - interactive experiments: http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/ Integumentary system: http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookINTEGUSYS.html The heart: http://sln2.fi.edu/biosci/heart.html Skeletal system: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio105/bone.htm A whole lot of cellular and nuerophysiology stuff: http://www.physiol.usyd.edu.au/daved/teaching/ Hope this can help some people. Enjoy you studies!

Hi MR, How is nursing in Australia? Well here in Sydney there are two types of nurses: 1. Enrolled Nurses (called Div2 Nurses in some other states) these are basically equivalent to what you call a LPN in the US. Enrolled Nurses or EN's are technical nurses who provide much of the basic bedside care. To become an EN one must undertake a year long hospital based training program with the theory component delivered in blocks at a technical college. 2. Registered Nurses; RN's are the professional nursing care providers they are university trained. In Australia a Bachelor of Nursing degree usually takes 3 years of full-time study, although now there are graduate entry programs and accelerated programs. The healthcare system in Australia is less profit driven than in the USA, although we have private hospitals here, the public health system is definitely the biggest employer of nurses, and provides the most diversity of work environments. Other differences include the division of labor, there are no Physician's Assistants or Respiratory Therapists in hospitals here, these roles are performed by nurses. The wages as described by bagwash are pretty accurate, I have heard of Clinical Nurse Specialists earning up to $85 000AUD/year. Depending on the day, 1 Aussie dollar will buy between 0.75 - 0.80 USD. Additionally your employer will contribute to your superannuation (retirement plan), most hospitals also provide study leave and have good continuing education opportunities. About registration (lisensing) to practice in Australia, there is no national exam (such as NCLEX) at the moment. Each state maintains it's own nursing registration board. You will need a visa that allows to you work here. For visas you need to check the website of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA): http://www.immi.gov.au/extend/index.htm Essentially if you are an American citizen, a Registered Nurse, are in good health and have no serious criminal convictions and have enough money in your bank account to survive when you arrive here then you should have no great problems in obtaining the appropriate visa. Your local Australian consulate may also be a good place to get info. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council (ANMC) are a national professional body who carry out assessments of skill levels and qualifications of overseas trained nurses wishing to work in Australia. Here is their website: http://www.anmc.org.au/ Once your qualifications are assessed and recognised you will then need to apply for registration with the appropriate state registration board. If you wish to work in Sydney (located in the state of New South Wales (NSW)), then you will register with the NSW Nurses and Midwives Board: http://www.nmb.nsw.gov.au/ If you are a NICU nurse then the Prince of Wales Hospital, as suggested by bagwash has a good NICU. Sydney's largest paediatric hospital is The Children's Hospital at Westmead, they also have a very good NICU: http://www.chw.edu.au/about/jobs/nursing/grace/ As far as trauma goes, Sydney's largest and busiest trauma hospitals are Westmead Hospital (different from Westmead Kid's mentioned above) and Liverpool Hospital: http://www.westmeadtrauma.org/ http://www.swsahs.nsw.gov.au/livtrauma/default.asp Both of these hospitals have NICU, Liverpool also has paediatrics. Westmead Hospital does not have paediatrics because the Children's Hospital at Westmead is right next door, however they do maintain a small NICU because they have a large obstetrics department there. Hope this info helps youor anyone else thinking of visiting and wrking here for a while. Cheers, Grandy