Nurse In Australia » Beginning nursing

Difficult New Graduate Nurse Year

Ross — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:29:39 +0000

I’d love to find out how our graduates are finding things in their first year out.

Likewise, how are seasoned RN’s finding our new graduates?

One of the more common questions that seems to arise with nursing students, particularly in their last year, is whether it’s better to obtain a position in a grad year program or similar transition package, or whether it’s better to just try to find employment as an RN and worry about preferences later on.

Having been on a grad program myself & worked in many different clinical areas, I’m of the opinion that to start with I don’t think it’s particularly necessary to obtain a specialised grad year rotating program, as long as your clinical area has good support for new nurses. That’s not to say that it isn’t nice to land one of these jobs & try out some different areas, just that it doesn’t really matter so much if you don’t.

What’s more important is that you receive good support from your place of employment. Whether this is through debriefing sessions, supernumary time, buddying up with seniors or ongoing education, the important thing is that you feel like you are practising safely and know where to go for answers if you are not sure of something.

Additionally, remember that the transition period is always the hardest – it’s important that you stick things out & don’t take things too personally.

Even though it may not be to the same extent, I’m sure the difficulties in a graduate year are not exclusive to nursing. Similar professions such as physiotherapists, radiographers, students who are studying for medical coding certification, or any number of a whole host of allied health positions come across similar issues in their first year out.

So, what are your thoughts or experiences – if you’re a new nurse, how is your graduate year going so far?

If you have grad nurses in your clinical area, how do you think they are going??

What can be changed or improved, and do you feel like we are practising ‘safely’?

Job security luring more students into nursing

Ross — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:48:08 +0000

credit: Shermeee

Job security has always been a great factor of nursing. In my experiences on the job, it’s pretty rare that a nurse gets fired – you basically have to be grossly incompetent, breach some serious code of conduct or be solely responsible for some dire situation that occurred.

This is not to say that nurses take registration lightly, or become sloppy because of the knowledge that their job is pretty secure.

On the contrary, I think most people are very aware that the threat of litigation and the need to be deemed competent underlies every shift we work, and generally speaking nurses are really very careful with things like medication checks, following protocols and working hard within their level of expertise. They are also very aware that any given situation could potentially end up in court, maybe with no fault at all on their behalf, leaving the nurse to defend or clarify their actions, involvement and/or documentation for a particular situation.

One of the stories that came out of the Sunday Telegraph last month titled Nursing’s a healthy option for students has highlighted what I’ve always felt about nursing – it’s a pretty secure profession. After all, even in times of economic downturn, people want good education and good health care. You can’t really say “well, lets cull a few hundred nurses because they’re costing too much.”

From the article:

“Job security is luring more students into nursing and teaching careers.
University chiefs believe the global financial crisis – and generous new HECS subsidies – have led more students to pursue stable career options.

Applications for a nursing degree at the Australian Catholic University in 2010 are up 44 per cent on last year, while education applications have risen 38 per cent.

The University of Technology, Sydney, has recorded similar increases.

An extra 375 students have applied to study the popular nursing program next year, with an additional 99 applying for the teaching degree.

Applications for the two degrees have doubled at the University of Notre Dame.

University pro-vice chancellor and executive dean of nursing Margot Kearns said the global financial crisis seemed to be influencing students’ subject choices.

“In this economic climate, people are looking for a more structured career path,” she said. “With education and nursing, they’re actually professional degrees and vocational degrees.”

“If you do a Bachelor of Nursing, you become a nurse; whereas with some other generic degrees, the actual career paths are not as well-defined.”

Perhaps this is partly a reflection on the current economic situation. Maybe more people are thinking about job security and long term career paths, rather than pursuing other lines of study they may also be interested in. I know that for me personally, I had several interests at the end of high school, and ended up studying a completely different field before my transition to nursing. When it comes to job security, I’m glad I made the move.

Professions like nursing and teaching certainly have the advantage of leaving you with a clear idea of what your job entails. What are your experiences – is job security a factor when considering career choices?

If you’re not sure what nursing is all about, maybe have a read of Should I Be A Nurse? and Good Things About Nursing.

For those interested in nursing, or not sure where to start, I’d also recommend that you check out Nursing in the Australian Health Service.

For Travel and Overseas nurses, don’t even think about coming to Australia without grabbing a copy of Nursing in Australia: A Guide to Working and Living as a Nurse Down Under.

What makes a nursing student stand out

Ross — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:10:15 +0000

From time to time I have nursing students tail me for two, three, five week or longer blocks.

photo credit: b a r t

These are people at varying stages of their studies, but mostly are second or third year students.

While it holds true that there are a lot of factors that make up a ‘good nurse’, there’s one thing that sparks my interest in particular. Some nursing students have it, some don’t. Some nurses who’ve been nursing for a long long time have it – and some don’t!

What is it? The ability to see the bigger picture. To think outside the square. Call it whatever cliche you want, I’m talking about people who have the ability to see outside of their little world of “what task am I finishing now?”

I’m still not entirely sure whether this is something that can be taught, or whether some people just get it. I’m sure there’s some people who could improve this quality, and there’s definitely people who are completely unteachable!

How to think outside the square

Here’s a few things you can think about doing at work to make yourself a better nurse. People who think outside the square tend to do these things automatically:

Be aware of what’s going on with the nurses near you
Have a general awareness of what’s going on in the department as a whole
Offer to give other staff a hand when you notice they’re struggling
Don’t get caught up in rules and regulations for the sake of them – think for yourself, why is that “the policy?”
Don’t be near sighted or lacking peripheral vision – be aware that you are one piece of a larger puzzle

Thoughts?

Is nursing any good?!

Ross — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:22:20 +0000

So, to start on a positive note (heh)

credit: chrome76

I thought I’d do up a quick list on some of the things I do like about nursing (to be honest, there have been many, many times where I have questioned my sanity for entering the profession!)

There definitely are some good things about nursing though, here are some of them:

You can chose what area you like to work in – Oncology, Paediatrics, Emergency, High Dependency, Intensive care, Orthopaedics, Med/Surg, Day or Short Stay Units, Theatre etc – do what you like!

You are part of a strange world where crazy people, vomit all over the place and foreign bodies in all sorts of places are part of every day work (also, discussing the viscocity of pus over lunch doesn’t really phase anyone)

Even though I hate to get up for an early shift, it’s nice to be done in time to pick the kids up from school (ugh – did I just agree that there are some benefits to shift work!?)

Penalty rates help make your income bearable (without them however…. grrr don’t get me started!)

Sometimes you can actually leave work feeling like you contributed something that actually mattered (I said sometimes!)

Most places allow you to be fairly flexible with days you want to work etc.

You see some things that people on the outside world would hardly believe (eg. massive degloving injuries, amputations, operations, highs and lows of births & deaths, psychotic schizophrenics off their meds, drug addicts and overdoses, attempts at suicide gone wrong, intensive care and high dependency patients, fungating rectal tumours (actually, scratch that last one, that’s not a good thing about nursing at all!) Anyway, you get the gist…

Procedures – some things are interesting… reinfusing constavac drains, pathology related stuff: taking blood, cannula’s etc, rapid infusers, ventilators, naso gastric tubes, irrigations etc…

Being part of a trauma team – working on a team that interacts & communicates well with a critically ill patient is part of the job I really like.

Triage – If you can handle triage on a saturday night without cracking or losing your sanity, seriously – you can take most things in this world!

credit: move-at-light-speed

Anyway, I’m sure there are many more things that are good about nursing, it’s really quite a subjective thing… What do you like about nursing?

My experience of starting nursing

Ross — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:55:06 +0000

It’s a tough, life changing decision whether or not to get into the nursing profession.

credit: Random Ideal

In fact, when I first considered studying nursing, I really didn’t have any intention of following through and making it a career…!

After finishing school I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, but had a short list of:

- Info Tech (1st on list)
- Teaching, and
- Music

So nursing didn’t even really get a mention… I ended up doing 2 years of IT at uni before realising I wanted to keep computer stuff as a hobby rather than a profession (not enough ‘people interaction’? Maybe also because I was losing interest in computers after sitting behind one all day every day!…)

Anyway – my swing into the medical world really happened at that point because I had a vague nagging interest in blood, guts and hospitals & wanted a bit of an introduction to it all. I also thought about getting into the ambulance side of things, but was a bit put off with the idea of getting posted out to some remote country town for my first few years…

So I enrolled in a nursing degree much to the laughter and disbelief of my family and friends (males + nursing = we still have a long way to go as far as public perception goes!). I discovered that in your first year of nursing, you don’t really get into a hospital at all (well I didn’t anyway), so I really had to tackle second year to get a better idea of the job…

photo credit: littlenelly

By the time I finished second year, I was beginning to realise the scope of the nursing profession – I had done some clinical work in aged care, community health, medical and orthopaedics ward nursing, and been in & out of theatre to watch a couple of operations… so the lure of blood & guts and that constant alco-wipe smell, coupled with the multitude of work choices that nurses have proved to be too strong. I finished out my third year and began the foray into what I was later to fully discover, was this crazy world of nursing.

(Addit: I don’t often like to admit it, but I also have a few other qualities that leant me towards this profession: I’m pretty good at staying calm when people are screaming and freaking out, I can handle juggling several tasks at once, and I have a fair degree of empathy for people who are hurt and broken – all things which I spose work well with nursing)

(Addit #2: Blood and guts and hospitals sounds way better!).

So that’s how it all began for me, anyway….

If you’re interested in nursing as a new career, check out the About Nursing page. You might also want to read should I be a nurse?

Should I be a nurse?

Ross — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:58:40 +0000

Sometimes you hear people say things like “oh, I’ve always wanted to be a nurse…” or “I’m thinking of doing nursing”. Nursing is a bit like teaching in that it’s hard to know what it’s like until you actually do the job… Unfortunately, you can’t try the job until you have completed your training time.

credit: Chealion

So I guess it’s good to have some idea of what the job consists of before you throw your money into 3 or 4 years of study.

Basically, you really don’t want to waste several years of your life studying, only to find out you hate nursing! (it’s happened before)

Incidentally, while I was half way through my course I met a couple at a dinner function one night. After we introduced ourselves, and I said I was studying nursing, the girl said to me “DON’T! – Drop your course right now! I’ve finished my nursing, and after working 2 months it was so bad that I’m never nursing again!” What an interesting introduction to nursing! Thanks to this lady, I questioned my decision to study nursing quite a few times! (Anyway, I’m pleased to say the girl didn’t deter me from finishing my study, and I found I got into nursing a bit more than she did when I finished!)

What sort of things do nurses do?

Day to day tasks vary a lot depending on where you work, but there are general skills that basically all nurses have:

Nurses have to have very good social and people skills, time management skills, be good at thinking on their feet and be good with handling pressure and problems when they arise

Nurses have to be good at teamwork and working with other allied health groups such as peers, doctors, physios, social workers, chaplains, radiographers, wardsmen, admin staff, meal crews and others

Nurses have to have good organisation skills in order to formulate plans of care

Nurses have to have a disposition which allows them to work in sometimes stressful, frantic or problematic environments without freaking out or losing their heads!

Nurses have to have good analytical, problem solving and drug calculation skills

Nurses have to cope with working all hours of the day/night, back to back or double shifts at times, or late/early situations where you survive on 3 or 4 hours sleep

Nurses have to be good patient advocates and keep the ‘good of the patient’ in mind

Nurses have to be able to take (and later give!) constructive criticism without falling to pieces or bursting into tears (actually this goes for all forms of criticism – you have to have a tough outer shell and be able to cop a bit of flack without letting it get you down)

Nurses have to deal with things like blood, mucous, faeces, vomit and pus, as well as drunks, losers, creeps, verbally abuse people, physically abusive people (one time in my first year of nursing an old lady SLAPPED the GUTS out of my face after I walked into her room, got up close and said “good morning Mrs Sil… ” *WHACK!*) Also sometimes you have to face things like needle stick injuries, blood or body fluid splashes, and coming in contact with people who have communicable diseases.

I’m not trying to paint a bleak picture, the reality is that you have to have a certain personality to be good at the job and to enjoy it! So if you think you are a bit intrigued by it all, jump in and give it a go! What are you waiting for?!