The NMC guidelines suggest that all nursing students should be given experiences in each of the other branches of nursing, ‘to inform branch choice’. There is a certain logic to this, in that it essentially allows you to ‘try before you buy’. Anyone coming from a care background is unlikely to have experienced all types of nursing, and anyone coming from college is basically just taking a guess as to which area they think they might like. So, before plunging into a seriously life changing decision, they very kindly let you have a quick go on the other branches.
As a mental student, I am therefore required to spend time in adult, child and learning disabilities nursing environments, essentially to make sure I know what I’m missing out on. My university, in a move I am infinitely grateful for, only requires that we complete 34.5 hours in each other branch. Not exactly giving us a thorough insight, but a good little taster with the knowledge that, if it’s horrendous, it’s only for a week. I am informed that in other (probably much better) universities, students are farmed out for between 2 and 8 weeks each.
I’m just about finished these tasters, and, whilst none of them have been horrendous, I am very glad I’m doing mental health. Readers of my blog will know that I spent my week with the health visitor biting my tongue as chav parents acted like their kids were just an annoyance, who got in the way of their being drunk at 11am.
My learning disabilities placement (council run respite care) was ok, but rather quiet, as most of the clients had a better social life than me and so were never about. I was slightly bemused (read: pissed off) to learn that a care officer with an NVQ 3 was paid more than a newly qualified nurse in the NHS. Ho hum. Most exciting bit of the week? Trip to Tesco’s with clients. I got a free coffee.
The one I was dreading most was adult, particularly the references about not being a ‘proper’ nurse; I dislike having to justify my career choices to people I’ve just met and don’t like. As it happens I needn’t have worried, as most of the nurses there apparently wished they had done mental health instead of adult. One of the 1st year students there was changing to MH, a third year student just hated nursing and was going to have babies immediately after qualifying, and both the cadets on the ward couldn’t wait to go somewhere else. It was a very grim ward; half the patients were alcoholics in organ failure and my enduring recollection is going to be that of an elderly lady with C.diff repeatedly asking me to kill her as we changed her incontinence pad. At one point I thought they had mistakenly sent me to a psychiatric ward, as the majority of the patients had some sort of mental health problem; dementia/delirium, depression anxiety (both probably induced by the ward, frankly) and outright psychosis.
The ward itself was complete chaos; supposedly supernumerary students were counted in the numbers and there still wasn’t enough staff to give patients the time they needed and deserved. Some of the staff were fantastic; others were shit, to be blunt, as even I did more work than them…and that’s saying something, considering how completely and utterly clueless I was.
Anyway, I’m glad to be back. Or rather, I’m glad to have finished my last placement of my first year as I now have six weeks off before returning to uni… 
The fact that you got any branch exposure is a miracle to be honest. I wish that we had when I did my training. Midwifery exposure was 2 days, all other branches were covered by some one coming to give us a lecture for the afternoon. This apparently counts towards the curriculum. A tick box for the Uni and a raw deal for the students.
Be grateful for what you’ve had.
Kitty – that is pretty crap. I think there should at least be an option to experience the other branches if you want to, possibly as an elective placement. It has been valuable, and I’m glad I did it, but I’m also very glad it’s done…
Universities do seem to be pretty variable in the amount of branch exposure they give students. My uni was pretty good – I got 2 weeks on a medical ward, 2 weeks in midwifery. I didn’t get a placement on a paeds ward but I spent a week as a classroom assistant in a school and a week as a nursery assistant to gain experience of working with children. Learning disabilities was purely lecture-based though.
I’ll never forget the horror of watching a caesarian section on my midwifery placement. Childbirth is damned unnatural. It was like this.
I would have loved a nursery assistant placement…a week in the sand pit? Fantastic…
Glad I didn’t get a midwifery one actually, Mr Door would never be allowed anywhere near me after seeing that firsthand. Ignorance is bliss I think…
Access to placements in other branches is easier in universities with smaller intakes of students or more co-operative local Trusts. My own uni has an intake of some 300+ students, all of whom need placements. There just isn’t enough capacity to offer placements outside of branch.
We don’t get any opportunity to see other branches even in the form of a lecture. The university I go to is having a few erm teething problems with regards to placements in general and quite a few students have been told when they have complained about unsuitable ones that they are ‘lucky to have a placement at all’. So I guess the likelihood of a taster of other branches is pretty low.
I’ve done a lot of bank work on general wards as I thought I would benefit. I did. It made me realise how glad I am to be doing mental health. But I think it is important to see how the other branches work even if it means we’re glad to go back to the ones we know and love.
As I’ve struggled to find any children/teenagers based voluntary work and I’ve been asked to stop harrassing my placement team for placements in this area I’ve been doing some work as a dinner lady!
We had 5 weeks each in Learning Disability, Mental Health, Adult and a Nursery placement of actual practical experience. We had a two week theory things for midwifery, Of which I can only remember one thing:
Loved my nursery placement, I was the first male member of staff and first student ever. All the little boy kids copied my every annoying mannerism, back when I thought the Fonz was still cool (1996).
My former uni seems to have changed the way they do branch placements since I qualified.
When I did the CFP all the Proper Nursing branch students spent two weeks either on an acute ward or an EMI ward. Now they’re given a list of phone numbers for the different areas of mental health (acute, EMI, camhs, forensic, ECT suite, rehab etc) so rather than spending two weeks on one ward they go out arranging lots of little visits instead. Naturally the students are pretty disgruntled about being expected to Pick Up The Phone And Use Your Own Bloody Initiative, but I suspect it’s probably not such a bad way of doing it. After all, they’d probably get to see more of the variety of roles in mental health.
Have to agree I’m jealous of you having these out of branch placements, don’t get any thing apart from guest lecturers talking about their specialities. But from my own experiences your general ward sounds quite crap.
Z – I think thats a pretty good way of doing it actually. Only problem I can forsee is that the Uni tends to have more clout in terms of organisation; a ward manager is more likely to ring the uni back about a placement than little old me, to be honest. I’ve lost count of the number of people who are going to ‘ring me back’ and who I’ve then had to practically stalk to get an answer from.
Seem’s to be a mixed bag as to whether they are any good or not, but I guess it’s nice to have had the chance. Just wish I hadn’t seen a lot of the stuff that goes on in a general, it has made me terrified about ever having to go into one for anything!
To be fair it is about capacity. The larger Uni’s do struggle to find placements for all their students. It has got better since the SHA’s are commissioning less places.
As for the clinical areas…… You have to know when to shut your doors and be firm, or you’d be over run. We are assessed as having capacity for 2 students. If they beg, we’ll take 3. That’s when the barrier comes down. Anymore and you can’t run the ward and teach. That then becomes a disservice to both your patients and your students. If you’re not firm though, they will try and send more as they have nowhere else.
We also currently take 1 student midwife a year for 2 weeks, I doubt that we could stretch our capacity to other branches as well.
Only problem I can forsee is that the Uni tends to have more clout in terms of organisation; a ward manager is more likely to ring the uni back about a placement than little old me, to be honest.
Oh if only that were true. cellar_door, I have about as much clout as Joe Schmoe from the tills at ASDA. You should see the chasing about I have to do to get educational audits done.
Beakie –
hehe! Maybe our placements office is just particularly threatening, but they have always seemed to get the job done for me, when I’ve had trouble contacting wards
Certainly the placements I’ve been on have been quite scared of losing the uni’s backing. I have a lot of respect for the people organising the placements though, must be a complete nightmare.
Our placements manager person is this tiny wee woman with a nice line in earrings and a lovely soft Northern accent who is apparently a bit of a mare when riled but never seems to get riled! Me, I’m too soft to go ranting down the phone at people
I did 6 weeks in community general health – ambulance, health visitor, district nurse, etc; then 2 months on general ward (incl surgery, maternity and casualty); 3 months acute I; 3 months psychogeriatric; 3 months acute II and finished with 9 months community mental health ( incl 3 months management; 3 months elective and covered working with all of the CMHT as well as linking in with the Child & Family Therapy Team) by the end of which I was carrying my own caseload (of only 6) and stepping in to run the walk-in service on a Friday afternoon – so everyone could get their paperwork done. I did lots of liaison work in other areas – eg a day at physio, audiology, OT-physical rehab; several times in a GP surgery and my training was 3yrs and 3 months – this included ample time in the classroom and on-placement support from tutors. Oh, and I arranged my own 2 week Child and Adolescent residential placement which had to be out of area (no services locally) but was easily done through colleagues who knew someone who knew someone who worked somewhere.
There was nothing wrong with the training curriculum in order to train people to do the job – but to get nursing to degree standard they had to make it more academic based and then they shoved everyone in together to make it as cost-effective (cheap) as possible. That’s when they lost a lot of quality in the training.
As for the current ‘tasters’ c_d; over here RNs get 2 weeks mental health placement – and after qualifying they can work in mental health. If they want to major in mental health they get to spend another 8 weeks at the end of year 3. Otherwise it’s all the same for years 1 & 2 – for adult, child, mental – there is no learning disability nurse training.
Incidentally, I also started my RNHM before transferring to RMN – which is where I had a great 8 week placement at a nursery and learenedf a lot about normal behavioural develoment which came as a bonus to my RMN.
As an aside – this is where I got my current nick: I introduced myself to the kids as Ian, as I was only 19 at the time and didn’t feel like being Mr XX, but they got told off for being disrespectful because all the other staff were addressed as Mrs Biggins or Miss Winthrope so they were advised to address me as Mr…. so they did…. and they all called me Mr Ian
I’ve used it on t’internet for about 15 years now
You should see the chasing about I have to do to get educational audits done
beakie: why do they not realise – the placements don’t care about your/their educational audits.
I know students are the future and all – but it strikes me as odd that me the preceptor (who gets nothing for doing so) should extend my duties to include completing educational audits for students who we recruit far less than we train.
I guess their answer could be to send you their clinical benchmarking to get done?
edit: ..should extend my duties to include completing educational audits for a university who provide us with far less than we train for them.
the placements don’t care about your/their educational audits.
Oh, I’m well aware of this, and they’re not MY educational audits, they’re apparently OURS. The Trust get on my back about them as much as the university and I think they’re a complete waste of time and effort.
for a university who provide us with far less than we train for them.
You’re not training them for me, ducks, you are training them for YOU. If things in Oz work the same way as they do in the UK, then your place of work will have commissioned these students places.
I am aware of this also – I did not intend to imply “you” personally require them, but your role does.
This year I assisted with 10 student pre-reg student nurse placements; 2 Diploma and one Masters. Of the 10 students only 3 were keen to go into mental health anyhow. The Institute places post-grad students – they dont get to choose – so we are getting one student from this years student precepting effort.
The Trusts and Uni may get on your back for them – but for the shop floor nurse and their unit – it is meaningless.
If I am training them for me – why am I subjected to the Uni,s rather bland and pointless competencies?
We are charged with producing these competency documents. The competencies are decided centrally i.e. by HM Govt and the NMC (or whatever its equivalent is Down Under), we maybe get a choice in how to word them.
We would love more clinicians to get involved with the process of curriculum design and development, with assessments and with teaching.
So where’s my invite?
Apparently I’m not a Key Stakeholder Organisation.
Mr Ian – certainly seems like all the bases are covered there
Sounds interesting (particularly like the ambulance idea) but think I actually prefer my uni’s way of doing it, for once. Elderly inpatient and community first year (plus alternative pathways), acute inpatient and community second year and 3 week elective, elective specialist mental health services and elective management placement in third year.
Beakie – do our placement areas get incentives for taking students? Or do they take us out of the goodness of their hearts and a burning desire to teach the yoof?