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NO really. they aren't. It is a much much much lesser version of te AA. More akin to a really great operating department practitioner with somewhat more babysitting power. The dr will do all induciton and reversals. there is no scope for change in this, the British medical establishment, which effectively shackles nursing has ensured in measures of self protection and clinical elitism.

Its really not what you think. The plan would be decided by the doctor. Evverything would. it is as limiting as the AA way of working. no real autonomy. And i doubt he'd be doing any of the stuff you described. The actual plan is to have these anaesthesia practitioners (Not how its not the much more obvious nurse anaesthetist!!!!!!!) babysitting the pt as the doctor will be doing the induction and reversal meaning the AP will place lines etc but have no autonomy to run said drugs to the patient. so there you have it. A great idea crushed by the selfish its all about us attitude of the medical establishment and the please, dont pay any attention to us, we're just here to be mothers to our paitents attitude of the nursing establishment

The ACTUAL difference between degree and diploma nurses is marginal in their training. The difference is actually the adition of a few more modules and a very very small dissertation for extra credits. There is no difference between assessment criteria and all nurse qualifying need to have exactly the same skills. There is no advancement in terms of one being more anythig than the other and this is a crucial misjudgement of people entering nursing in the UK. A degree is almost certainly NOT guaranteed to get you your post second or even third as merely possessing a BSc is not a measurement of a nurses worth Degrees are sometimes necessary for a promotion to Sister or Charge Nurse level, but before then they make absolutely no difference in terms of patient outcomes or nursing knowledge and skill.

Hey dont get me wrong. Training GSTT was the best thing that ever happened i had the greatest placements in neuro, cardiothoracics, renal transplants etc. it was the university, the terrible we'll sort of half teach it approach and the general feeling that it was pointless or boring. And that was felt on masse by the majority who constantly asked what any of the stuff we learnt had to do with anything.

Just read in the Nursing TImes that the government is planning to introduce 'ER style' physicians assistants to the UK. This will involve a MAsters degree.. Apparently the DoH feels there is a niche for thisw kinfd of role, but does anyone think that this is a waste of time oney and resources considering that PA's were introduced; A) To get men into a nursing style role without the personal care. B) To get men into healthcare within the armed forces C) To dilute the medical profession in a similar (but not) way like Nurses and Nursing Assistants? Apparently th erole will include taking histories, physicals and managingand treating CERTAIN illnesses and posibly referrals. But why bother when the government announced that these were the things that nurses would be doing tin the future? Personally i feel that we have a lack of people to do the caring. Plus why do we have to use bizarre terms like Medical Care Practitioners (the term they are choosing) to name this new 'profession? I don't think this is the way forwards. I think this is advanced nursing without the dirty side. Any thoughts????

Ha! i was training at King's but I/we hated it thre. Many people left in my first year, not to quit but to transfer soewhere else, as has been the case for the past 3 years. I'm gonna finish at Kingston in February. Ah the lucky APEL, i got APEL'ed from a whole placement because i had spent nearly a year in a HDU. But people were APEL'ed if they had so much as set foot in a nursing home or baby sat children (Paeds students) and maybe even had a crazy friend!! (sic).

EBL is not dangerous but unfortunately like most nursing theory it had to be invented albeit at short notice. It is poorly taught and the subject is crtainly not given the gravitas it needs i fit to be truly taken in and used as a format for learning and research. The unfortunate outcome is that many students trying to use EBL and EBNursing, fuind that research rarely comes down on one side of the hypothesis, and certainly for their assignments, opting for one argument without lengthily describing its failures is a sure way to fail. Like alot of nursing students i meet, their main complaints are that the course has borrowed heavily form sociology and psychology courses in an attempt to legitimize nursings' claim to the emotional well-being of it's patients at the expense of real science, whihch most in adult nursing will have to learn informally on the wards on in their own time.

I'm sorry but can you honestly tell me if any of us english speaking people were abroad in say france that we would avoid at all costs speaking in english for fear of offending the french. Please. Furthermore, it's usually never about their english especially with Filipino staff. their english is usually word perfect - save for the slang. i just think it's a bit petty. The real issue is because you don't know what they're saying and that is annoying, but in the whole spectrum... worth pursuing? i think not.

oooh... well, well done you. But still, right now there's nothing to stop any of us from calling ourselves Nurse Practitioners and i think that does need to change.

I have never heard about the London hospitals having a reputation against foreign people. London is so mulitcultural and diverse. Alot of the Nurses are black, asian, fillipino, australian, kiwi, irish, french, polish, czech, south african. We have a rentention problem here. 'Ok. London is like, the capital of England, so like naturally alot of the better hospitals are gonna be there, such as: Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals King's College Hospitals St Mary's Hospital University College Hospital London Royal Free Hampstead Barts and the London Hammersmith Hospitals those are the main acute hospitals in central london, but because south east england is so built up compared to the USA a hospital isn't ever far away in the south east. you just have to beat the traffic. These hospitals are fantastic and perform some of the most advanced healthcare delivery in the world (ooh get me!!! ) Anywho, these hospitals also pay more coz they're in London. Come see 'em. Guy's and St Thomas' where i'm traning has a TV programme on it. Ooohh!!!

Right on!!!! :chuckle :balloons:

See i hate earlies and lates. i just can't stnd the idea of having to go in for five out of seven days! Much prefer long days and i love nights!!!! And yes we all know that the US and Canada have long working weeks, however i feel that some things such as rate of pay, status and work environment is insome ways better. i really do think that nice wards have agood effect on everyone and in the NHS even at Guy's and St Thomas' many of the wards are ugly, dilapidated etc. But i mean it isnt all doom and gloom. t least we dont have mandatory overtime! :rotfl: :) :chuckle

Massive amounts of time off!? We have some of the longest working hours in Europe!!!!!!! BUT yeah we do have a particular type of white middle class yob that enjoys drinking and fights but then again in a small country as wealthy as this i can understand the turn on, tune in, drop out mindset. Personally i think it's a result of excess, in everything. sometimes it seems like we're only short of nurses, doctors and dentists.

I'm interested in working in Dubai eventually after i qualify next year and would like to hear from any nurses who have worked or are working in that region. Any advice etc would be appreciated Thanks!

I'm afraid i do live in London. I live in a place called Camberwell and if YOU really live there you could tell me exactly where it was. I'm there studying nursing as a matter of fact at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery and training at Guys and St Thomas' hospital. I never grow tired of being right

What on earth are you talking about??? The reason that mainly arab people were arrested is because terrorism recently is attributed to the arab world, so of course they're going to arrest arab people who they suspect!!!!! Blighted by gangsters from eastern europe??? Are you sure you live in london??? Do you know how majority white the United Kingdom is????? do you know that minority groups make up less than 12% of the whole population of the UK??? Blighted by gangsters??? HAHAHAHAHAHA IF any gangster from eastern europe could even afford to set up shop here (the most expensive city in the world on par with Tokyo) i would be amazed. Yes we have our problems but we also have a ferocious set of tabloid newspapers that regularly dont show the whole story. You find me a politician that doesnt do media stunts???? and as for gangsters... whatever. we might have a bunch of annoying kids etc , but at least we dont have grown people fighting turf wars. London is a great place, i think mainly because rich and poor live close together (unlike the US where you can geographically distance yourself form the poor.) WE find gun crime shocking here because it is, not just a fact of life like the US. Clearly if you live in london you're about 10 minutes of the banana boat, otherwise you must live in a really crappy area

Err - i think i'm going to have to disagree with you there. While it is true that most european countries have an active drinking culture i'd like to point out that the US has a far worse drinking culture. i'm so sure that i feel i could just say; the United States has worse drink driving levels, alcohol abuse, alcohol related crimes compared to any country in Europe (probably excluding Russia - maybe). The reason we do better i think is because our legal age for drinking is 18 in the UK and not a too far away 21. it means that by 18 everyone is used to alcohol. (Just an opinion) We have a drinking culture because we feel that alcohol can be enjoyed responsibly and away from the traditional 'keg party' and 'spring break'

WRONG!!! In the UK the term anaesthetist (how it's spelt here) is the equivalent to the US anesthesiologist. As we say in the UK 'Get it right!'

Very little compared to the other midwives.midwifery still has the off-shoot of nursing attitude apllied to it, however lots of differences, mostly in autonomy of work result in midwives being paid at a current F grade level to start. in nursing the F grade position is in charge of the ward so you get some picture of the money increase. irritatingly midwife pay varies from region to region with london paying the highest due to cost of living there. Your whole question of how much £££ depends entirely on how you want to work. do you want to be clinical, managerial research and so forth. this is important as having a degree adds nothing on to your pay unless you use it to get a job that requires a degree. this is because the nursing or midwifery degree course is exactly the same as the nursing and midwifery diploma course except in the 3rd year you do a research project, that is all. and this has no outcome in the calibre of nurses or midwives after they qualify either However if you had little or no midwifer experience save the qualification then you would most likely start at the bottom. in the UK midwives provide most if not all obstetric care for mothers, deferring to obstetricians where necessary or indicated. but any experience as nurse would have to be natal or at least in paeds/ nicu/ gynae which may not be considered relevant at all. midwifery is an entirely separate career here but provided you can register and you have qual. you would likely start on an F grade salary As for Nurse Practitioners, this is also a grey area. Currently there is not pay band specific for NP's. Usually they would be in bands F, G and H, but this is variable. the work of NP's is absoutely and most definetly nothing like the work US NP's will be used to. NP's do not prescribe the full formulary it is restricted (thankyou general medical council) and you will laugh till you cry at some of the things avaiable for prescription. the most scope may just be minor injuries and small patient groups slecetive to any speciailty howeverthe NP's scope is tiny compared to the US equivalent and the pay not much better than the general nurse. remember that if you have advanced practice under your belt in the US coming to the UK will effectively cull whatever clinical freedom you enjoyed. The British invented nursing and are unfortunately stuck in a time warp that defers to medicine on most occasions. Clinical advancements is not something that UK nursing hsa yet to achieve in part due to the 'it's a vocation' school of thought, in which the entire profession states that the love of the job accounts for everything else. Also the mentality of nursing here is to blame.

Nursing education. good or bad? I am currently in my second year at a very prestigious london nursing college (hint - she had a lamp that she liked a lot) My main concerns are the lack of formal practical training we get on the wards. once we are on the wards we are left usually in my case with a mentor. they are great, mainly because they have to try and teach you, whislt caring for their own patients (this may not be the case elsewhere but it is here!) now if we imagine a classroom, with 30 kids and 1 teacher, can she teach them all? Proabably now imagine that say 15 of them need regular medication and observations etc. can she teach them all? unlikely now imagine that on top of all this , she has to try and teach 30 kids, who are ill plus train another student teacher. can she teach them all now??? It's looking a bit dodgy now eh? wards are great, but it relies on student nurses to learn from routine, which is a good base, but no two days are the same, once you move away from the stuff you do do everyday. but wards are not the same for everyone. i feel that the experience is not equal for all nursing students, and while it is up to us to get the most out of out placements a ward should also be a place to consolidate our learning also. and following someone around all day insn't always convinient for the student or their mentor, who most of the time cannot give you protected time for 1 one 1 learning (especially as my placement is at the UK's busiest renal transplant unit. My main whinge is about the lack of practical skills, e.g. why are things like venepunture and cannulation, catherization, etc post registration. those three study sessions probably don't even make up a week. so why are they not pre- registration? it makes more sense to teach as much as possible before we come out, no? These skills aren't hard, otherwise we wouldn't have nursing assistants and phlebotomists doing them, but we can't really always rely on them. if accountability starts from day one, then so be it. if all newly qualified nurses are preceptored then what's the problem. why add more stuff on once the real learning has started my suggestion is that we steal an idea from medical school training. skills books. they work like this: can insert cannula - tick box and sign. see, it proves that they can do it. if were not sure about just the one go then why not make it 3 attempts, or 5? why don't we learn these new skills year upon year? Currently my placement book involves me singing copius forms about whether i know how to treat the ptient as an individual (not applicable on the cloning ward) and whether i know about enhancing dignity etc. These are great (if not extremely long worded) things to concentrate on, but all the respect, dignity and individuality in the world aren't going to make them better is it? To me nursing is a blend of practical AND other skills but these seem to have been shunted aside in my experience in order to make my patient feel better. Personally (my opinion!) i feel that we are treating our patients too much as customers, yes we are providing a service but such as are most complaints in the NHS they don't go high enough to reach the people who can decisively do something. I really think we need a bit more bulk in our course, actually to do with physically nursing a patient, mainly because other than biology and psychology, the rest should be fairly obvious. treat you patients nicely, don't whip the curtain round without asking whether they're decent and ask them to do stuff! you can't teach that, well you can but it's a bit of a waste really innit'!

MDA is bit of slang for Anesthesiologist. MD Anesthesiologist

I am NOT trying to stir up any controversy here, but i was wondering if any theatre nurses noticed any differences between CRNA's and MDA's working style, attitude, behaviouir etc. Any comments??

I know the uk is soo crap sometimes. its the Medics really they just want to hold the reins they think they have on us. i reckon if nurses ever do do anaesthesia it will b spraying ligno down patients throats and other dull stuff. the reason is that people in the nhs especially doctors hate change. they also hate you taking anything off of their hands. seriously it's a big deal if a nurse does endoscopy or bronchoscopies or cardioversion. the only roles our medics will let us take are pointless ones that dont require us to either prescribe independently or to make a decision without them. but either way im a coming to america someday to do my CRNA course. bit worried about the GPA system. we dont have that here. we just have grades. after A-level (ages 16- 18) you get grades A to E (usually in 3 subjects). i did 3 A levels got 2 A's and a B. plus i have the international baccalaureate (a well deserved 9!) does anyone know of a way to convert this to a GPA score?? Anyone? Anybody?

Having read around the subject of anaesthesia, i iwas surprised to learn about the post of CRNA. I suppose in the UK anaesthesiology is one of the most reverred medical specialities which i why a nurse with 20 years experience in the field still will have never began to induce by his or herself. Finally the NHS (National Health Service) is allowing nurses to practice but it doesn't say how yet. i imagine in true British style it will be spraying lidocaine down people throats for bronchoscopies but hopefully we will take the training programme in the US and apply it exactly to British Nursing education. Thankyou for educating me about this Nursing speciality which i definetly would love to pursue!!!!!!!!! Nurses rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!:chuckle :chuckle :chuckle

Definetly it would suit Nurses working in dead end F and G grade posts. i really do think that the U.S. CRNA course could be transferred over here immediately. i hope it does very soon¬!!!!!!!!