by: Jenny McPhail, Edinburgh Napier University
In February 2020, during the final year of my nursing training at Napier University in Edinburgh, we were given the opportunity to arrange a four-week elective placement out with Lothian. This could take place anywhere in the world, however it had to be an approved placement, with the appropriate supervision and had to be arranged by ourselves. Ever since I began the course in 2017 I had been keen to undertake an elective in order to experience how another health board functions. I made the decision to organise my elective at Croydon University Hospital partly due to its proximity to my sister’s house where I planned to stay, but I also chose Croydon hospital for more academic reasons. It is a large hospital with many specialities and covers a multicultural population south of London. I chose to spend my placement on a joint Cardiology and Haematology ward.
By Alexandra Bygrave
The Northern Hospital, Epping.
My first placement was in The Northern Hospital, located in the suburbs of Epping. I was allocated to Ward 220, a Respiratory/ General Medical Ward. This was made up of ten to eleven nurses with thirty-two beds. As a student nurse I was to complete Monday to Friday shifts consisting of AM (7:00am-15:30pm) and PM (13:00-21:30pm) shifts. The style of nursing was named ‘buddy nursing’ where they were allocated into pairs, taking on up to ten patients and shared the workload. As a student nurse I was allocated a buddy nurse every shift and was given two patients to look after. I was expected to know my patients back to front. This included why they were in hospital, past medical history, social history, current medications and understanding the reasoning of why they were on each medication as well as the drug classes and mechanism of actions.
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