Clinical Placement

Currently watching Princess Diaries 2 Royal Enagagment, writing this blog, and attempting to start my assessment, who said i couldn't multi-task. GO ME !

So the objective of this blog is to write about what has happened in the last two weeks and compact it down to hopefully one paragraph or so. Okay so 'bout two weeks ago 11 other students and myself were required to fulfill 8 hours a day at a Hospital we were allocated to (Westmead Private Hospital) in order to gain a satisfactory result in one of our nursing subjects. So for the past two weeks i've been on my clinical placements. In the first week, the first half of the group started their shifts in the early hours of 6:30am and finished round 2:30pm, whilst the second half of the group started in the arvo's round 1:30pm and finished at 9:30pm, then both groups swapped shifts in the second week.

What we all hoped to gain after completing our hours was the ability to put theory into practice, gain competencies in various tasks such as; giving out medication in an accurate and safe procedure, deliver safe and hygienic wound care and to imrpove on other aspects we've learnt prior to placement such as taking observations, bed baths, mobilising patients, risk assessment and communication among other things. I think all of the students i was grouped with achieved all the objectives that they had hoped to achieve prior to placements, acheiving a satisfactory result at the end.

The whole two weeks was a good experience for me. Much better and different than the last placement i had at a public hospital. The atmosphere was a hell of alot nicer and more organised and professional less chaotic and yelling happening (lol). The staff were all very polite and patient with the students, they were always willing to help and answer questions, especially after the student nurses would tail their ass all day. The patients too were heaps nice as well and were willing to let us practice 'nursing skills' on them! And i think i've also learnt alot from these two weeks from the patients i've met, to my fascilitator and even from the friends i've made within my group. They've all had such remarkable experiences and shared how they've come to be where they are today, it was truly mind boggling, eye opening to hear their stories about their lives, their culture and realising how very different our cultures are and how lucky we are to be here. Truly inspiring. I forgot to mention that the group i was in was quite multicultural hence all the diff. stories. But the patients had some very good stories to tell too, when i found time to sit and listen. In this one instance i found some time after my break to talk to this lady patient. She spoke of her life in South Africa and of the horrific things she experienced there. I got so caught up in her story and lost track of time, thus being late to my debriefing in which i got reprimanded BAD by my fascilitator (lol). Fortunately enough i only got in trouble twice for the whole two weeks which isnt so bad !

The rest of the two weeks was spent tailing my nurse and nodding my head and saying yes, whilst taking in some important information of course ;) All in all it was a good two weeks, even though i started counting down to the day it finished the very first day i got home =)

Just a few of pics of the people i spent the two weeks with at the multicultural lunch we had the day before we finished. Yes the unifrom is dazzling -_- haha