When did you do your training.....

[suewan]

and  what was your first posting.......

I trained 1976-1979.... started at the David Lewis Northern Hospital Liverpool...this closed in 1978 and we then moved to the 'New' Royal Liverpool Hospital

I was so looking forward to qualifying and to being able to wear my Florence Nightingale hat.....that of the starched net affair that sat so high on the head it got tangled up in the curtains every time you tried to get through them.....and bounced up and down when you walked ;Doh Oh and the pale blue uniform,navy belt and the treasured silver buckle.....

But alas that was not to be ..my last placement of my training was in theatres...which I was dreading as it was quite alien....but boy from the minute I walked in on my first day I just knew that was were I wanted to be...the whole experience fascinated me and the first time I scrubbed up had me in seventh heaven.... :D

I cried when I had finished but the theatre nursing officer told me to go away get my self qualified and then come back to her which is exactly what I did.....

[nursesue]

I trained in Oxford 1978-79 for my Orthopaedic Nursing Certificate and then did my SRN training in Birmingham 1980-83 and my first Staff Nurse post was ward D male trauma and orthopaedics on full time night duty. Alas no nice uniform a paper hat that always came off when manual lifting ( no hoists) on the traction beams and the national "J cloth" blue uniform but the buckle was a gift from my parents now consigned to a draw for safe keeping!

[wilfb]

Hi.

I did my first training in 1961 -1964 at Parkside Hospital, Macclesfield (and yes, Macclesfield really does exist - and a note for the scottish malingerers(!) - it was the place that we turned 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' around before despatching him back to Scotland!) and (please forgive this), I received my first 'posting' at Ashton-u-Lyne General Hospital some years later when, finding supemely confident after a difficult but highly succesful interaction with a male patient on the orthopaedic ward, I spun on the spot, smiling broadly, to leave the bedside (quite finding that there were forehead-height traction beams down the ward) I walked straight into the one at the end of the next bed and was, to put it mildly 'Floored' or should I say 'posted'...!

Name and address withheld.....

[backman]

1st September 1975 (same day as the series Angels started on tv),qualified in 1979,(failed my states exam the first time as I didn't study hard enough!) The Jersey Group of Hospitals in the Channel Islands.Staffed in Casualty in the summer months and general surgery(with a two bedded ITU) in the winter.Anyone remember the East Radcliffe Ventilators? State of the art in the late 70s and early 80s.

[Sarah Rogers]

15th October 1981, ? yellow set 472  (like a prison number..still indelibly sunk in my brain.
I chose the london (not just because of its uniform)-- it was more practical than some of the others at the london teaching hospitals....leg room to move hips etc when doing the now banned australian lift without showing too much leg!
mainly i chose it because they invited parents to the interview and were so friendly and welcoming...and treated so many local people- it was at that time like a local hospital, but with many specialities
and - unlike Tommies(they didnt want to know what my dad did for a living,
and also unlike  like Charing Cross did not leave  candidates to arrive in an empty tower black with no welcome/staff  there for it seemed like ages (ironically the Principal there then was Miss Parker, later to be my Principal at the Princess alexandra school of nursing).
sadly i threw all those lovely brochures- i had about 10 and applied to 5 apart from the LH one away!)
lizzie

[barrysutton]

Trained in the Army as an Operating Theatre Technician (OTT - we where), qualified in 1976, I'm still working but now in the N.H.S. now titled as a R.O.D.P. (Registered Operating Department Practioner), the job's changed out of all recognision, whats disposables?

[wilfb]

Disposables? You throw them away Barry!

[barrysutton]

Is that whats happened to the badges and hats?

[wilfb]

Yes, but that documentary on 'Nurses' - mentioned eleswhere - still has nurses wearing their badges!  And I am still searching the laundry bins for the others (I believe many nurses lost their badges to that location). Hats? No - they were recycled into J-cloth for use in that new national uniform years ago!

Will./

[barrysutton]

I thought that disposables ment 'Nappies', I've reverted to linen theatre caps.

[suewan]

Can you still get linen theatre caps.....we used them back in the late 70's but then they were replaced with the J cloth ones...

I had to wear pink while doing my theatre nurses diploma course then blue once I was a qualified

I much prefer the linen ones.....

Although it's  been many years since I saw the inside of an operating theatre....other than as a  patient and then I was too scared to look :-[ ;D

[Lord Anthony]

When did you do your training?  I can remember this very well. Monday 14th July 1952, i commenced training as a student nurse at the West Middlesex Hospital.
Our PTS was a large country mansion - Caenwood Towers, Highgate N6 on the edge of Hampstead Heath. See my entry last July 2012 under the topic - "First Days
in PTS at the West Middlesex Hospital"!  I started at the WMH as a student nurse, but unfortunately, I failed the Preliminary exam twice.  So for the last six months
there I became a pupil nurse.  After obtaining my SEN qualification, I moved to a much smaller hospital in Kent, the West Kent General Hospital, Maidstone.  You
kindly put up both my PTS group photos last year with all the names, thank you. It was an added bonus for me to attend a second PTS of twelve weeks. My varied
experiences at the WMH had been invaluable, but the smaller training hospital (WKGH) gave me some unique opportunities! Once I had qualified as an SRN in the
1950s,as a male nurse it was advisable to take further training if one was to advance professionally. I chose psychiatric nursing, and commenced my RMN training
at Ookwood Hospital, Maidstone. When I retired in 2000, I had completed 48 years as a nurse!

[myk1066]

I commenced my training as a Pupil Nurse in June 1986 at the Bromley School of Nursing, based at Farnborough Hospital. 
I didn't have wonderful CSE's as was & the only way I could get into nursing was as a Pupil Nurse.  All of the hospitals in the north had stopped EN training & the DC test, an entry to do RGN training, was only open to mature applicants aged 25 & over!
I think the south of England continued with Pupil Nurse training to help with staffing difficulties.
I lived in, 2b Keith Porter House at Orpington Hospital.
I shared a flat with  2 others from my set, Helen & Siobhan.
My placements were mainly at Orpington Hospital, I undertook male surgery at Farnborough Hospital, run ragged on TURP day!  I also remember admitting the Sister from that surgical ward to a medical ward with cancer if my memory serves me right.
  I had the dubious honour of being the first male nurse to work a female medical ward at Farnborough Hospital!  I did casualty at Orpington Hospital & will always remember a rather rotund Staff Nurse always saying 'perhaps the student would like to transfer the patient to the ward'. I always wanted to tell her 'actually no I wouldn't, your patient you do it'
If I remember rightly the DNE, a Miss, had connections with the ENB & a Helen Gribble springs to mind.
We once got on the bus outside Orpington Hospital in our uniforms & overcoats, the girls wore their caps, you just wouldn't now would you.  My uniform was a white poly cotton Drs coat, with a small belt type attachment at the back & eppualets, white petersham for 1st year, grey for 2nd year & gold for 3rd yrs.  I had my COHSE badge on my lapel & a name badge over a chest pocket. 3 pens, red black & blue for some reason.
I did nights on a medical ward & had my first cardiac arrest & ill always remember the young girl killed on New Year's Day, from a RTC, when I was on casualty.
I also remember the time we were in the SoN in the summer, we all wore shorts & were all told off as it wasn't the done thing.
My first post as an EN was on a mixed bag of a ward, medical, surgical & orthopaedics, I didn't stay long, about a month, I moved on to the Brompton & worked on a cardio-thoracic surgical ward & loved it. 
I eventually converted to RGN at Blackburn & Burnley & have never looked back. 
I'm now an Emergency Nurse Practitioner.
I thoroughly enjoyed my training & would do it again.
I've since qualified as RN Child, completed a Dip Nursing, BSc & a MSc.
Happy days.

[wilfb]

Hi myk1066.

Super story involving what must have been a serious amount of a serious amount of work. I don't suppose that you have a photograph of your group that we could feature on our news pages? Thanks for the story - I really enjoyed that!

Will.

[myk1066]

I may well have a picture of my Pupil Nurse set.  We were a group of about 12 people & some of their names escape me but I'll find the photo & contact one of the girls to get the names of all my set.