about the proposal for students to do a year working on wards prior to 'starting' their training.....am I missing some thing are nurses not supposed to work on wards .......in my day you worked and learnt as you went......
I think its a good idea but the first year spent on the ward should go towards there training Mnay students see a nursing degree as the cheap option towards getting a degree or better still lets get more nurses onto the wards and pay usa decent wage for a good and often hard days work
Hi.
I started as a hospital cadet in 1958 (please don't work out my age - still 27) and we experienced the whole gamut, from days at college to days in departments like the path lab - doing highly technical stuff like urinalysis and scraping cooked faeces samles from specimen bottles with orange sticks!! We did very many menial tasks daily so learning to wield a mop properly on the wards came as no suprise when we became students. Cleaning up sputum on the TB annexes I found horrific, but the personal care of patients was our raison de etre. Everything seemed to revolve around the patients - quite correctly, and woe betide any nurse who neglected a patient for any reason...
And no, we were not perfect, but we cared for our patients physically and mentally to our very best ability.
And yes, there were 'moments'. I can remember threatening (whilst a student) a male staff nurse with physical harm (!) because he was to my mind rough and abusive to a senile patient. I was required to explain myself to a Chief Male Nurse for that! Being 'Rocketed' by an Assistant Matron for (1) sitting on a patient's bed - he was desperate for someone to talk to - there were no chairs so I sat on the bed-end; (2) Wearing a bright mustard coloured tie; (3) Daring to mop (when domestics had become independent); and one or two similar 'sins'...
I did three degrees whilst qualified and ended my career a teacher. I never (I hope) forgot how to make sure patients were always as comfortable as possible or to insist that others do the same. Dying of thirst was unknown. Pressure sores always seen as failure by nurses - no matter what caused them....
I don't know if a year on the wards will help - I still believe that the modular system of nurse education was best, and that when allocated to wards for practice the nurses running the show should be in-charge totally. I am not sure that they are any more, as many will themselves be 'Degree nurses' with very different values today. If they don't have compassion at the start, maybe they will never be able to feel it.....
That, I think, may be the problem.
Will.