My hymn called faith and misery

For those...anoyying pains
In less then 12 hours hours, I will be starting a new job. I shall be a Staff Nurse in a Cardiac Catheter Laboratory. Yes, I am going to be back in Cardiothoracics and I cannot wait for it.

Well, I am leaving acute medicine. It is with a mixture of thoughts and feelings that I leave the ward. I was not happy on there, that is true. There was a low moral on the ward, and I was happy to add to the general malaise by never having any shifts that every actually made me think "I really liked that". There was bad start to my internship placement when I was in Cardio last time as a student-mostly the bad feelings was that I really did feel like an outsider. Once I felt accepted, and had re-established my comfort zone, things were fine.

Things have not been fine elsewhere though. The ongoing relationship with my girlfriend has ended once and for all, as things have gone past the point where things could be salvaged. I regret that happening, but I know that the best thing to do is to move on, and see if I can find somebody else. Another thing that really annoyed me was a total- idiot- who went on a dangerous ego trip while on duty with St John the other day and basically started running the duty even though they are not supposed to duty manage (not trained for the role) and even though they were supposed to be "non-clinical" decided to go off to see a suspected medical emergency. This was odd as no-one radioed it in, and when a steward directed us to the call, we found them and somebody else in with the "patient" who then gave me and the AFA I was with a load of lip. YOUR ONLY A BLOODY FIRST AIDER, SO EVEN THOUGH YOU MAY THINK I'M "JUST" A NURSE, I'M A DAMN SITE MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE THEN SOME HALF-WIT WHO DOES A WEEKEND COURSE THEN THINKS THAT THEY ARE BETTER THEN A CONSULTANT IN TRAUMA MEDICINE! I have a code of conduct, accountability, professional registration, 3 years of UNIVERSITY training, and the ever present fact that I deal with acute patients every day I am at sodding work. I can recognise my limits, and work within them, but these idiots have not got a clue sometimes, nor any of the above mentioned qualities. Yes, you may be good at bandaging, but over-empowering the under qualified to think that they can make decisions which should only be made by those who are trained and qualified professionals is dangerous. On one call I was at, I said to the patient to have a check from A&E by a DOCTOR have have a small check done because I KNOW THAT TO NOT DO WAS TO MAKE A CHOICE ABOVE MY TRAINING. When I'm not sure, I ask a doctor, another nurse or arrange the patient to be checked elsewhere (I once told a patient to follow up with either a GP or practice nurse and wrote a continuation sheet for the follow up appointment as I needed to go to greater depth then the PRF allowed. I did that as I was aware of the NHS services the person would need to access, and had a good knowledge of how the follow up should work. I only know that because of my NURSE training. A 16 hour course alas, does not. For now, I am annoyed at SJA. They expect Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics to treat them as equals (they are not), but then show no respect to their superiors. Dangerous.

My generalised anger

I am a tad discommoded tonight as I write this as I was intending to currently be on a night shift. I however turned up onto the ward and found that my shift has been swapped to tomorrow and Saturday [while now trying to remember if they were changed from nights to days or not altered from nights-ed].

Now, it has been almost a month since I last posted anything on here. I think that this blog is less posted then my old one, mainly because I have been away from home a lot an/or too tired to bother writing posts (especially when you write and see "comments 0" which makes me wonder if anyone reads this).

One of the main things that really gets on my nerve is the endless supply of trouble which tends to come with express delivery to the ward. Anything, even the most smallest thing, seems to be on the ward at the speed of light. However, I have see pinned to the notice board a letter written by the relative of a patient and they discuss at great detail the care given by a nurse on a particular day- I happen to be the nurse mentioned. The letter was very pleased and thankful for the care that the relative of the patient received. Did not see that one getting mentioned much!

Trouble is something relatively light for me on the ward. I have put a lot of incident forms in about patients of mine falling, and bar two about one incident, have occurred on nights when staffing levels are reduced (but not the number of patients who are at risk of falls). Pseudo science I know for staffing levels, but I guess with enough prolonged submission the shift will go from anecdote to supporting evidence in the official channels. Apart from a run in with a relief HCA the ward has been busy but no major disasters have occurred save for a minor injury one day. What does wind me up is the fact that the hospital is woefully short of beds and we seem to be a dumping ground for A&E and the AAU as they are driven to distraction by the 4-hour target et al (no doubt some A&E nurse is blogging about how unco-operative wards take all day to have patients discharged and gives them a headache arranging patients beds on wards...).

Biggest problem for me is my other half. She is currently going through a rough time and dispite my trying to be their, she is pushing me further and further away. Oh dear.