Hello everyone!
So, at placement recently a lot of nurses have been asking me "why nursing?". This is a very good question! And I never have the answer. I know that a lot of people have a reason as to why they chose nursing. But I don't. I just know that I've never wanted to be anything else. As a little girl, my friends were dreaming of being singers, actors, dancers and all that sort of thing, I was dreaming of being a nurse. I guess you could say that nursing is my calling.
Even now, when people ask me why I want to be a nurse I always struggle to answer. I have no real reason as to why I want to be a nurse. I am a very caring and compassionate person, which may be one of the reasons why. I love to help people. I love the high I get from the gratitude that someone gives after being helped. Which is obviously something you get from nursing.
But, how could I have known that at such a young age? I have no idea.
When my mum was pregnant with my little brother, who is now 13. I remember being fascinated by the hospital, what the midwife was doing and even more I was fascinated when they took my mum's blood! This is when I went through the stage of wanting to be a midwife, which I think is where it all began. This is when I was about 5 years old. I loved the thought of bringing new life into the world, and of course I loved the fact that babies were involved! I wanted to be a midwife for about 5 years. During this 5 years my mum had another baby boy who came along when I was 10. After this baby was born, my mum obviously aware of my dream of being a midwife started telling me what I would need to do. This is when I found out that it isn't actually all babies and a midwife's main role is to support the mother and father during pregnancy and during the birth. But obviously, the pregnancy is longer which to me means less babies. This is when I realised that I love children. I then decided I wanted to be a neonatal nurse. Being a premature baby myself and learning a bit more about this I was just amazed by what these nurses can do. This went on for a lot longer than the midwife phase. I was about 17 when I panicked. I was applying to university and I was at a work placement for college. This was at a children's hospice. It was the best placement I have ever had and I loved it. However, this is where I met a children's nurse who told me she felt trapped in the children's hospice because she did children's nursing at university. I panicked at this point because I knew I wanted to work with children but I wasn't 100% if I did. I also found out that there are only 50 spaces on a children's nursing course. Which scared me even more, because I was so desperate to go to university and carry on learning and of course to fulfil my dream of being a nurse. I just did not want to get rejected. At this point in my life I was very self doubtful and wasn't sure I was even good enough to be a nurse and what not. So I decided to apply for adult nursing. Adult nursing has about 200-250 places I believe so I thought that I had a much better chance of getting in. Also, with adult nursing you can easily branch out into many different things which I thought was really good as I didn't want to feel trapped in my profession.
During my journey of finding out what I wanted to do, I learnt that I would love to be a midwife, a neonatal nurse, a paediatric nurse, an adult nurse, a health visitor, an ITU nurse, a cancer nurse and a A&E nurse. I want to do it all and I also want to move to America. So, with all of this in mind I applied for adult nursing and I got a place.
I was absolutely amazed by the fact that I got in, because not only did I get into 1 university, I got into 2!! I was gob smacked! I could not believe that 2 universities wanted me to study there! I ended up choosing my university and that takes us to now.
I guess I chose nursing because I love to help, I love to learn and I love to be challenged. I love that fuzzy feeling you get inside when you see people so genuinely happy. I love brightening people's day and I love to support people. I love making sure people are comfortable and it makes me so happy when people say "thank you, I feel so much better".
This is what I get from nursing. It gives me a buzz, and I wouldn't change it. Nursing is what I was made to do and I can't wait for my career in nursing to begin. The day that I'm a fully qualified nurse will be one of the happiest days of my life. I feel like I will have such a rewarding life, helping people and supporting people in their own journey's. I feel so lucky to share people's lives and journeys with them. I just think I'm one of the luckiest people on earth.
People always tell me that I could get more money from doing something different. But doing something different won't feed my soul and will only fill my bank balance. Nursing is done from the heart, not done to pay the bills. A nurse is inspirational and will go to the end of the earth and back for their patients. Nursing is more rewarding than a high paid job and I will never be short of pride and gratitude for being given this as my profession.
Hello!
So, on placement this week in the intensive care unit they were short staffed. Nine patients in the unit, but only 6 nurses! Yeah, wasn't fun. There were 3 students in that day, so the nurses who were looking after us students had 2 patients to look after. The nurse I was with gave me the responsibility of looking after a patient. This is the first time I have ever had my own patient to look after, and I was even more nervous about it since these are all very sick patients. I found it very difficult, but I was very grateful for the support I was given by other nurses on the unit. Whenever I had a question or asked for help someone was there to help me.
I was originally very upset by the fact that I had to hand over this patient at ward round, raise my concerns about the patient and then hand over again when the new staff came on in the evening. I felt very uncomfortable, having never done this before, and felt like I hadn't learnt anything in my first year of nursing.
I was amazed by the end of the day that I had done it. I had raised my concerns at ward round and it was okay. The doctors listened to me, people took me seriously. After that day I feel so much better and more confident. It really showed me how coming out of my comfort zone opens up new things for me. And I feel as though I can be more involved in decision making on behalf of patients and looking after patients.
Stay tuned!
Bye xx
