My job as a: General Nurse

Riveta

Occupation: Registered General Nurse (RGN)

Grade: Staff Nurse

Qualifications Held: BSc Nursing (General) (Hons) Currently studying for a Masters in Social Science (Health and Illness)

Day-to-day: This depends greatly on the ward I'm assigned to as I'm currently a bank nurse and work in a variety of settings.

Every morning we recieve a full report from the night staff detailing the medical/surgical history of patients, their reason for admisson to hospital and what nursing care they require. Nursing care could mean how much assistance they require in completing personal hygiene tasks, mobilizing, if their bowels have moved, if they have a wound that requires dressing, if they require oxygen to help them breath, if they're surgical patients we'd find out how many days post operative they are, if they're passing adequate amounts of urine, and that all their blood pressure, temperature and other vital signs are all ok.

After report we do our morning drug round to our assigned group of patients. Staff Nurses generally care for 6-9 patients on a general medical/surgical ward. Then we'd assist anyone who requires help with bathing or showering, after that we check everyones temperature and blood pressure. If I had a patient going for theatre I'd make sure that all their pre-operative check list was complete-basically ensure that it's safe for them to go to theatre, making sure they had units of blood ordered things like that.

Mornings are very busy times on wards and the routine I'm talking about is the ideal! You could come on and find you had a sick patient that required alot of your attention or you might have to keep in contact with the patients doctors to keep them up to date or alert them if the patient was deteriorating.

The medical/surgical teams do their rounds usually in the morning too.

Once the morning is kind of over we try to do some paper work, then at lunch time we'd assist any patients that needed help with their meals making sure they were eating and drinking enough. There's also another drug round at this time.

In the afternoon I'd generally give my report to the Ward Sister or CNM (Clinical Nurse Manager) so that they know what's going on with the patients or if anyone is going home, they'd usually let me know about now if I was getting a new patient in my room. This all depends though! The wards are like organised chaos at times!

Throughout the day though you're constantly linking with other health care professionals like physiotherapists, occupational therapists, etc. Nurses are kind of the link between all the other professions that come into contact with patients. We're the ones that are with patients 24/7 and tend to know the most about them-be it their social circumstances or physical and psychological state.

Nursing is like any other job, it has it's ups and downs. I've some lovely memories of feeling I actually DID make a difference with patients. Getting a genuine thank you from someone that you've nursed for awhile and seeing them after surgery and then walking home can be very rewarding.
It's a hugely stressful job too but I hope the benefits outweigh the negatives! You can end up having everyone giving out to about things that you can't control sometimes!

It's tough physical and emotional work, anyone considering it for a career should really get some work experience in a hospital before commencing the course.

The degree is a 4 year honours bachelor of science degree that's split 50/50 between university and clinical. First year is scary but fun!

Hope that was somewhat informative!

Riveta

Just to add a little more!

Age bracket: Early twenties

Weekly/Yearly routine: On general wards and in most areas in an acute general hospital we work three long days a week which are 13hr shifts, not as bad as it sounds! If you're on a roster and have a contract you have to do nights once every sixish weeks but this depends on the area. Some Nurses in the commmunity like community RGNs and public health nurses work monday-friday and most specialist nurses would like monday to friday also. Throughout the year we generally have inservice days and courses to keep our skills up. We have to complete a manual handling and cpr course every two years also. Alot of Nurses would have post-grad diplomas or masters degrees if they're working in a specialist area. These course can range from intensive care nursing to wound care to cardiology and emergency nursing. Some hospitals run an "in-house" course while alot of them are run by Universities and colleges.

Previous jobs: I worked as a health care assistant in care of the elderly when I was in college.

DreamingAgain

Hi
Just wondering,I was told that if you are a student nurse you can get a job as a healthcare assistant (as you said) while in college but is that easy to get?How do you go about that and do you know if it's the same for midwifery students?
Thanks!

Peaceoutdude

Hi, I'm in 5th year in secondary school. I am thinking of doing nursing in NUIG, but points are high would you recommend anywhere else to go?!.
Also how do you know if you are suited to the career,is it a hard course to do in university.
Thanks