an end to my placement

Well it was my last placement day on Saturday. I went through my evidence with my mentor to see what competencies we thought I had passed.

Because of the way I have chosen to catalogue my evidence it was easy to match up my evidence against the competencies and I am pleased that most of my competencies have been signed off by my mentor. There were a few people who I did not get a chance to speak to with regard to their job role which is a shame but at least I was able to speak to the stoma nurse and the play specialist during my placement, both were valuable experiences.

I felt sad to say goodbye to the friends I have made, both patients and staff but I leave feeling more confident in myself and my nursing future. It will be a shame to return to uni, even though I will see my friends there.

During the placement I also had the opportunity to attend a student road show run by the RCN. It was an extremely useful experience and one I am grateful to have attended. Matters such as interview technique, legal issues, student issues and RCN services were discussed and a delicious buffet lunch was provided (along with presentation notes and a cotton bag) the event would have cost £10 but was free to RCN members (very good value considering I paid £10 for 3 years membership to the union). Also at the event, and the most important speaker, was Amanda Sterne. Her husband was admitted to a hospital with diarrhoea and ended up being dehydrated because no one on the ward monitored his fluid intake and out take. This happened on 3 separate occasions, despite Amanda writing to the chief executive of the hospital and her husband's care team. This dehydration sparked off a chain of events which meant her husband suffered: multiple myocardial infarctions, strokes, deep vein thrombosis, had both legs amputated, lost his voice due to a tracheotomy and faced suffocation. Eventually he took his own life rather than run the risk of once again being admitted to hospital.

Amanda had a powerful message to give and you can buy her book, a full account of what happened, here.

Once back on the ward my mentor and I looked at my progress on the ward as a requirement of the mentor is to decide if you were: extremely good, very good, good, poor, very poor- for four separate categories. So I had sat down and thought about how I had done. My mentor and I compared notes and it was decided I had passed the placement.

So now I'm back at uni and trying to prepare for my impending exam - I will probably start to panic next week. At least I have got rough drafts of all my assignments finished!