Weekly Handover (1)

It occurred to me the other day that we have a weekly round-up of mental health related blogging (This Week in Mentalists) but we’re also a nursing blog. Hence from now on I’m also going to do a linkfest every Sunday of the week’s nursing blogs, to be entitled Weekly Handover.

As with This Week in Mentalists, the Weekly Handover will be mostly British-oriented, and you can nominate blogs for future editions by e-mailing zarathustra at mentalnurse dot org dot uk

So, on with the first ever edition of Weekly Handover.

First off, student nurse The Oracle is experiencing bullying from a mentor.

Following the fiasco of last christmas, she decided to make an absolute fool of me in front of all the other students just so they “wouldn’t try and get away with it”. I must admit to being slightly mislead by the fact that she told us that the meeting we had with her would be “a general meeting addressed to everyone”. But then singled me out by saying “But Faith did this, and this and this and its just not on. Its a headache.” And then went on to say: “This is a small ward, word gets round when trouble starts, and say Zoe did something bad- and the gossip went round, I’d have nurses coming and telling me how they didn’t want to work with Zoe and then where would I be? Its hard enough already. I do not get paid for this job. I do it for free, and you people [A pause, looking over at me] just take advantage of my nature”.

Humiliating and dressing down a student in front of the entire nursing team? Totally unacceptable, regardless of what a student has or hasn’t done.

Another student nurse, Didn’t Want To Be a Doctor is unimpressed by the National Union of Teachers’ objection to Army recruiting in schools.

So, fucking teachers are fucking crying over the Army and ‘false advertising’.

Apparently it’s not all windsurfing and rescuing beautiful Slavs. No. It actually involves guns and not very nice things, like death. But that’s not the angle the Army are showing.

So, apparently, advertisements stretch the truth. No shit, Mr. Sherlock?

Nursing isn’t all Holby City and beautiful patients. No, honestly. It’s true.

And apparently, when you become a teacher you don’t get classes full of smiling kids who are ready to learn. Shocking, I know.

I wonder why they don’t try and sell their profession using that angle?

The Army, as well as the other Armed Services, do a job that should be recognised, not pissed all over. They should be respected, especially by other public servants.

So, on behalf of one would-be public servant: fuck you, Teachers Conference.

Student Mental Health Nurse is on hiatus due to being on placement in a highly specialist unit where it would be difficult to avoid breaching confidentiality. I’ll keep this one on my RSS feed until he/she gets back.

Crazy Nurse is having difficulty settling into a new post.

Whether my day is good or not depends entirely on whom I am working with - to be fair, for the most part, my new collegues have been more than helpful, and answered my many questions and whatnot, but on Wednesday I left the unit and cried; mainly becuase I was working with someone who made me feel so stupid it was horrible. I feel stupid most of the time anyway, and the others are always like ‘don’t be sorry, you’re new, you’re learning, its fine’ which (even though I’m not sure if they mean it) makes me feel a bit better.

A&E nurse Mousethinks has been comparing healthcare systems with an Irish A&E nurse.

We chatted for a while about the issue, how horrendous the situation is for patients, how frustrating for the staff and how the long waits are indicative of serious, deep-rooted problems in the Irish health service. I thought we were on completely the same wavelength…

Then I buried my head in my hands as she sighed wistfully and said “If only we had something like the four-hour target in Ireland…”

Nurse practitioner News From Unscheduled Care takes issue with the response of certain medical bloggers to a disciplinary case involving a doctor who delegated inappropriately to a nurse practitioner.

The usual nurse bashers have had a dig, Dr Crippen, Ferret Fancier, and the usual bollocks is spouted about quacktitioners. It amazes me that both of them seem to think that this a good excuse to have a pop at nurses again.

So let me see if I get this straight. A doctor fucks up, behaves outrageously, and according to his medical brethren it’s all the nurses’ fault.

Seem to have heard that one many times before.