Newbie

I remember my first day on the ward. It was very reminiscent of my first day at school. Putting on my uniform for the first time, looking in the mirror and trying to smooth down the ‘love handles’ my tunic refuses to disguise.The only catch to this magical moment was that it was silly O’clock in the morning and I was still dosey from the lack of sleep the night before, my nerves were also making my tummy grumble. It lead to me walking on the ward and breathing in the sweaty air with a triumphant yet wobbly grin. As you would expect the staff knew instantly I was the newbie. If the student name badge and fancy fob watch didn’t give it away then the perfectly ironed uniform did!

I was greeted by a rather large staff nurse who was way too jolly for 7am. She welcomed me into the nurses station and shoved a sheet of paper into my hand. The blessed hand over sheet*. I was a mixture of confusion and more nerves, I was also overcome with the strong urge to pee. What on earth do I write down on this paper? Will I have to write so small, in the minute space provided, that I could barely read it later on? I didn’t really have time to work it out, but as a small Scottish nurse handed over I peered over the shoulder of my mentor, my breathing then returned to normal.

As we went around the ward from patient to patient there was one common theme. The majority of patients were elderly, with a few middle aged thrown in. It is important to bear in mind that the ward I was to work on was a urology ward. So, these patients were also mostly men. It is a sad fact that if a man lives long enough he is most likely going to develop problems with his prostate**. This will then potentially lead to urine retention and thus, ending up on my ward. I would just like to say that all of the gentlemen I cared for in my time on the ward were as I just stated, gentlemen. In every sense of the word.

Anyway, I digress. My first day was not exactly a barrel of laughs and I learnt a lot by being thrown in at the deep end, leading to me becoming extremely red faced whilst trying to find answers to questions I was not even sure existed. All whilst my mentor quietly observed and watched me sweat. It also included; one splat in the face with water whilst washing out a bladder, via a catheter (I‘m sure my mentor did it on purpose), slipping on some diarrhoea in the gents, looking blankly at a nurse whilst she played with a mechanical bed insisting I recognise the fault and last but not least, vomiting to hard after work that I felt one of my eye balls had fallen out.

I was hoping that it was not proof of things to come. How wrong I was.

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*The hand over sheet is your Bible/Koran/Tenakh (What ever media form you chose to read for religious purposes, I do not wish to discriminate). It is the list of patients on your ward, personal details such as age, along with their diagnosis and plan for the day. You refer to this and record on it as the day goes on and the patients make developments or in the not so positive way, deteriorations. You then refer back once again at the end of the shift to hand over to the following team of nurses.

** It is estimated that 60% of men over the age of 60 have some degree of prostate enlargement