Sunday 20 December 2009

Too little time

I have now been blogging for 3 months and have managed the princely amount of 6 blogs in total!! I find that I have very little time and when I do have a topic to share with you all, I am unable to get to the computer as my husband is hogging it!!!

Time has been frantic in the lead up to Christmas and when I read the friend's blog who inspired me to start blogging, I wonder how she finds the time! Her life has been even more frantic recently with her husband being admitted to hospital a good 90 minutes journey each way and not in the most desirable of towns!! His stay was for 5 days and then he had to return each day for blood tests once discharged!!

I plan to continue blogging but know that I won't be here every week, today I have been lucky that I have had to borrow a laptop from guiding and so am able to access my blog without having to rely on my husband vacating the home computer for a while - he is unaware that I am doing this!!!

My life continues to be busy - a mother, daughter, sister, wife, guider in charge of a unit, a pack holiday advisor for the division, district commissioner -although this is a job share but I will write about how successful this is soon!! - I also work full time shift work and run the family home, but with a very supportive husband, so I am very lucky there!

I hope that one day, I will achieve a follower - the highest accolade I feel, but until then, I will write for my pure pleasure!

Happy Christmas one and all - I'll never get back on here before then!!

Justified!

Well, so I'm not an evil witch after all!!! The student who I have previously written about failed her dissatation for the second time which is an automatic discontinutation of training and I now feel justified in all of my concerns! It took another 3 weeks for her to stop her training but we got there!! I feel sorry for her to have come this far and to fail at the last hurdle, but when I ask the questions "would I want her looking after me when I am ill?" with the answer being "not in a month of Sundays," then this is definatley the right way to go.
Maybe she will think about trying again sometime in the future or maybe she will now realise that she just isn't cut out to be a nurse.
Can't wait to see what the next student is like!!

Wednesday 2 December 2009

Am I an evil witch??

Another of my many hats is my career in nursing. Give or take a couple of months this has now been my vocation for 20 years. I've worked all of my nursing career between 2 cities and only moved away from my training hospital group 3 years ago when all of the financial crisis hit the NHS. I've been to the lonely heights of a ward manager and beyond, but now am happy being just a worker ant.

Part of my role is to mentor students. We currently have 2 students on our ward. The first is a first year student on her first placement. She has bundles of enthusiasm and is keen to see and do everything. The second of our students is a third year student on her final placement due to qualify on the 31.01.10.

I am mentoring the third year along with another nurse who has been nursing even longer than me!!

This student has had to move her training university due to being pregnant in her third year and has moved into our region as she has family up here. She actually lives 90 minutes journey time from our hospital but unfortunately none of the other training hospitals/universities closer to home will accept students who transfer in their third year.

Our student's due date is the 3rd Feb 2010 - 3 days after her completion date. She already has another young child at home. She is currently 32/33 weeks pregnant, travelling 3 hours each day and in her first 3 weeks has managed to be sick for 5 days out of 15. She has to complete her nursing portfolio by this Friday - 2 days away - with me signing it stating that she is competent to be a nurse.

Now in the 13 days that she has managed to make it into work, I am quite clear that this is just not going to happen.

After a long discussion with her other mentor last week, I had the delightful task of sitting her down and explaining that I felt she would be better off pausing her training now, resting until the baby is born and then returning to complete her training once she was happy that the baby was OK to be left.

She accepted this and then spent the following day at the university trying to sort this out. I also contacted the university link tutor to explain to him why we felt this way and also sent him an email.

I arrive at work on Monday to find that everything has done a 180 degree turn and that she is going to continue and that I am being forced to say that she will be fine so long as she can get a two week extension on her portfolio!!!!

I then had to write an extensive action plan for her and gave her objectives to be achieved in stages leading up until the 18th December - the new deadline. It was agreed that if she could achieve all of this, then she would pass her placement.

I sat with her, explained the objectives, she agreed them and signed them, and a copy given to the ward manager who had already expressed some concern that she was going to continue.

The plan was to work towards her first objective and to have achieved it by this coming Monday. She was to think about how she would achieve her goals each day on her long commute to work and then we would sit and reflect on how things had gone at the end of each shift. Yesterday went slowly and she made a few basic errors but altogether not too bad. Today however was a different kettle of fish.

We were extremely busy and had too many patients for our beds. This meant that we had to work fast to get them through and to get the next lot in. The first patient she went to admit she took an hour to do! This should have taken no longer than 15 minutes for a student - if it had been one of the qualified nurses - 5 - 10 minutes at the most.

The next patient she admitted was a diabetic patient, basic obs include recording a baseline blood sugar - none done, last minute panic to test it prior to going into theatre. Next patient she admitted was on warfarin - a blood thinner and requires a blood test to check how thin the blood is so that the surgeon knows what he is dealing with. Recorded that the patient was on warfarin, but failed to alert any of the nursing staff that the patient would need this test doing - it can take up to an hour to get the result back!!! Luckily for us the consultant was in a fairly good mood and even offered to take the blood himself, but this still delayed the theatre list by 35 minutes, which in turn then delayed the patient going home which in turn then delayed the afternoon patients being able to be admitted.

When I managed to find time to speak to her at the end of my shift - making me late home and late picking up my son - I had to point out her 3 basic problems from today's shift. I also went through the other objectives and explained to her that she only had 3 more shifts left to achieve this first objective and that she was a long way off doing so. I also explained to her that even though she may achieve this objective, she would still be expected to maintain it as well as work towards her other objectives.

I emphasised to her that the objectives would be difficult to achieve in the time span we had and that could she now see why I was keen for her to pause her training??

I also said to her before I left that tomorrow was another day - likely to be as busy as today - and that she would need to have a clear action plan on how she would achieve her objective tomorrow. I'm hoping that she will improve by at least 300%!!

On my journey home, all I could think about was am I being an evil witch and making things difficult for her to continue her training, or am I trying to be a good mentor and encourage her to take advantage of the opportunity to rest before baby comes along?

I do know that if faced with this student at interview, I wouldn't employ her!!!

Thursday 15 October 2009

Missing Mum and Dad??

Of course one of my hats is as a parent. We were only ever able to have one son - who is now 10 - even though we have been trying for abut 8 years for another without success.
Up our way it's half term week and being very fortunate, my parents are always happy to have our son with them for the holiday - they live just over 200 miles away so don't get to see him as often as they would like - win win I see it as!!
We usually meet halfway between our homes and last Saturday after the early morning swimming lesson off we went. Two and half hours later we've met up, transferred what seems like half of our house into nanny and grandad's car and said our goodbyes - see you in a week, but we'll ring every night!
Have dutifully rung each night, but due to work I missed him on Tuesday night - I didn't get home until after 9pm. Spoke to my mum who said he'd been fine. Said I'd ring again on Wednesday - ring before 6.30 as we're going out for a meal with aunts, uncles, cousins etc. OK I reply.
Make the call as instructed at 6.20 - no reply. They had already gone out. Now I was off out with a friend and didn't expect to be home before 10pm, and my mum not being too good with technology, never answers her mobile phone!!!
So I ring this morning - he answers the phone!! Hello monkey I say, I've not spoken to you for a couple of days, are you OK?
Answer - haven't you? didn't realise! I'm OK.
Now, I could take this a couple of ways really - should I be deeply crushed that my son is not bothered that I haven't spoken to him for over 48 hours or, should I be happy that he is enjoying himself so much that he hasn't realised that this amount of time has passed and that he hasn't spoken to mum? Of course I go for the second option. I know that he is safe - although my mum is usually a bit slow telling me that he has had a trip to A & E for an allergic reaction to things!! - I know that he is enjoying himself and that he is a happy and confident young man. Part of me wishes though that occasionally he would ring me and tell me that he's missing me and can't wait to come back home!!
Am counting the hours until Saturday when I'll be trundling off down the M5 to meet him half way and bring him home!!

Monday 12 October 2009

Rota

Another of my hats is as a deputy manager of a ward in the NHS. I am full time but fairly new to this job - although I was a ward manager in my time - and my colleague is part time and has been in this position for many many years.

When our unit opened, she went for the ward managers job but was beaten by someone below her from the ward - this went down like a lead balloon!!! That was almost 3 years ago now, but she still likes to try and get one up on the manger every now and then.

Since I came into post about 4 months ago now, she has tried to put me down at every opportunity, which I don't mind as most of the time she has fallen flat on her face! The most recent part though is about off duty!!!!

I have always said that I would never do off duty again because of the grief it causes. However, our ward manager has repeatedly asked the other deputy to take this on board, but she has failed to do it. So I have offered just to help out as the ward manager is getting more and more rubbish thrown at her and asked to go to this meeting and that meeting at a drop of a hat. I can't remember the last time she was able to work on the ward doing what she calls her proper job - caring for patients!

Of course the other deputy sister has gone up the wall about it as I haven't been trained to use the e-rostering recently introduced to the Trust - she has but has never tried to use it. So although the offer was there, it has never been taken up. That was until last week when I came into work on the Friday to an email and a really big sorry written in the ward diary, saying that she had been so tired that she had been unable to complete the off duty and could I do it for her. Not a problem I said.

Finally manged to get some time in the afternoon and 30 minutes later - a week of off duty had been produced! Now the advantage of doing the off duty is that you can usually give yourself the shifts you want and make sure that you are not working with the people you despise - the other deputy sister!! I am very honest, I have no respect for her and really find it difficult to tolerate her when at work - but being as professional of over 20 years, I hide it very well!

I have emailed this to the ward manager and hope that she will publish it soon as it is for next week!

I can see this job falling my way for the time being and of course to keep madam happy, I will be wasting - sorry spending - a day learning how to use the e-rostering - oh joy!! But the up side? I won't be working with her as much as I have been in the past!

Saturday 26 September 2009

Why blog?

I have often admired a couple of friends who find time in their lives to write a blog a few times a week and thought to myself - should I be doing this?
I've searched about it on the web, but have never taken the plunge!
However, a few days ago, a friend on Facebook - yes I know! - gave a link to her second attempt at starting to write a blog. Having followed the link, and seen the inane rubbish she chose to impart to all and sundry, I felt that even I could do better than that!!
I know that I will never post anything as deep and thoughtful as my other friends and a part of me thinks that this may turn into a Victor Meldrew moaning place, however, maybe one day I will write something someone else may agree with or have had the same feelings about and then they'll know that it's just not them!
Welcome to my world!!

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Safety for horse riding

This is one of the things that have prompted me to start a blog - maybe it will give someone a kick up the backside and remember the highway code!!!
One of my many hats is as a car driver - along with a few other people in this country probably!
I live in a fairly rural village which has almost doubled in size since we moved here 15 years ago.
Part of country living are the horse stables situated on all four approaches to our village.
As I left for work the other day, a horse and its rider passed by the end of my road. By the time I caught up with them, they were approaching the main road in and out of our village. As I dutifully slowed down so as not to spook the horse as I passed it and indicated to pass them on the far right hand side of the road, the rider chose that moment - with no indication! - to take the horse to the middle of the road to turn right. There was then a lot of cursing under my breath as I had to brake suddenly to avoid a horse's rump through my windscreen and I manged to pull back into the left hand side of the road. The horse and rider then quite merrily trotted onto the main road.
Now having driven for many years and also having friends who ride horses, so feel that I do have some sympathy towards horse riders as I know that they get abused verbally, have empty drinks cans thrown at them, cigarette ends thrown at them, I felt that at long last I had reached the end of my tether, so wound down my window and shouted " well done for indicating - that really told me where you were going"! The look from the rider appeared to say "what are you going on about?"
I feel that I am always considerate to other users of the road and slow down and give a wide berth to horses especially with the amount around our area, however this has to be a tw0-way street - pardon the pun!
If you ride a horse on the public highway, remember - the highway code is for you to use too! This also includes using mobile phones while riding along the road - don't, it's dangerous enough in a car/lorry/coach!