MandaAnda

Out of the maternity wards (labour ward, antenatal and postnatal), postnatal would probably get you the best exposure to babies, although all would be good experience. I think it's also a great idea to try to get in there on your current placement i...

Yes. I do think everyone would have a learning curve, but someone who did not have any placements or theory in paediatrics whatsoever (but particularly neonates) would have it a lot steeper. I still think working as a HCA on a neonatal unit would p...

Just go onto NHS Jobs and look for jobs with nicu, nnu, scbu in the title and description within whatever radius you're willing to travel within and apply away. The recommendation is that all nurses working on a neonatal unit should be child branch ...

Varda, I don't know about exchange programmes, but I seem to remember hearing that South Bank University did clinical placements at St Thomas'.

In the UK, a lot of phlebotomists are trained on the job. I used to be a phlebotomist in the States, worked in clinical research in the UK where I did phlebotomy as well but can't do venepuncture in my current role as a staff nurse (UK trained). It...

Um, you said that already in reply to my query, back in February. See ^^.

I don't know if the immigration officer was being nosy, but when I last entered the US (in January), he asked me. I'm American but live in the UK. He asked me how long I'd been out of the country ("um, 2.5 years?"), what I do ("you mean for work? ...

As an American who has lived in the UK throughout her 20s, I think the NHS is great on the whole. I've done my nurse training here (I do happen to like the American way of training nurses better though). I like the autonomy that a lot of nurses hav...

My uni didn't recommend it, but they understood that most people did it. I mean, what do you expect on such a poor bursary? Aside from Trust banks and NHS Professionals, some Trusts use agency to sort out their bank, which ends up being staff and r...

We use sterile water and a square of gauze.

A lot bigger than my little ol' unit then. Makes more sense now. :wink2:

Wow. An entire job just for doing EBM? Do you have your own EBM bank or something?

We only have one healthcare assistant on our unit. EBM must always be checked with another nurse (our HCA or student nurses/midwives can also check) or the parent of that baby. When it's two nurses, we both must sign where the feed is recorded. Fo...

Well, I've just coughed up the £260ish to CGFNS to get my CES done. I've rang the NMC to ask for their verification pack to be sent to me (7-10 days it'll take :angryfire), and they said to fill it all in and send it back with the CES Request for V...

FusionFire, I'm not sure which ward Dayo went to, but I had placement at St Mary's for three months as a student. Great Western is the general paediatric ward, Grand Union is the infectious diseases/haematology ward and there is also a day care unit...

We have the paediatric phlebotomist come do venepunctures every Tuesday morning on whoever needs them. Outside of that, the doctors or senior nurses will do venepunctures. If it's just a CBG, the doctors/senior nurses will do that via heel stick (w...

We use CPAP and Vapotherm. I don't think I mind CPAP as much as the babies do, and I think we're both happy when we get to try out VT.

Just wondering if anyone's been told this or even faced this upon moving to the US. I qualified in September 2008 and have been working on a Level 2 NICU since. I enquired about some NICU jobs at CMC in Charlotte, NC just out of curiosity. Even tho...

Thank you. It's frustrating when someone just starts giving information but doesn't give their background as to how they know that specific information, so thank you for clearing up that you have worked in this area of nursing. And the reason why I ...

Fair enough, I suppose. However, I think it's a bit silly to try to get my clinical instructors to fill in references after I will have been working as a RN for around two years. Certainly, getting a couple of the senior nurses on my unit to give m...

Although I don't work there, I'm pretty sure the entire Imperial College Trust uses Pulse quite frequently. Hope that helps.

Exactly what I was getting at. Thanks, Sweeper. An OG just seems uncomfortable and unfounded if they're not on CPAP or N/C O2. And, yes, I'm a NICU nurse.

I saw the pictures in our papers today. From what I could see, none of these babies are on any sort of respiratory support....so why do they have orogastric tubes in?

Thanks, SD. It seems that uni can't complete the form specifically but provides an estimate, but I think that's ok because on the CES form for uni, it says: Oh, and uni says it will take them about 6 weeks to do and it's £25 per transcript (x2 , o...

We use Penta and Medicina. The tubing is purple, and the syringes are purple. It uses luer-lock, but it's different from the clear syringes that are for IV only and won't hook up to any IV tubing no matter what you try. There are also adapters tha...