Hospital Placement in Brisbane

UQ have on their website the areas of nursing each hospital offers. So go through and read them (maybe google the hospital and uni?) and choose hospital based on what area of nursing you want to go into and the hospital that offers it ie/ PA is the only one there that is offering students ED experience (as well as almost every other area you could possibly think of going into), so if that is where you wanted to go as an RN, that would be a first pick.

Oh, also consider location. PA is on the south side and the other two are north side.

ED=Emergency Department :)

Ok, local info will be tainted by whoever is telling you lol. for eg/ I live on the southside of the river, so I will say how great the southside is and it's hospitals. But someone on the north side of the river will tell you how northside is better. It's the brisbane battle hehehe.

As for insider info on hospitals, I do the occasional shift at the PA when my pt is admitted there. The doctors are amazing, and one even lets me watch what ever she is doing and explains how she does it and why. The nurses can be a bit too relaxed- eg/ my patient has a 24/7 uridome (it's a bit like a catheter, but it sits on the outside and goes on like a condom). The occasional batch of uridome are faulty and they fall off constantly under urine pressure. This has happened a few times in the hospital and when a nurse is asked to help with a bed change, they get really snitty. However they look at you like you have lost your head when asked for items so I can sponge my pt off after this occurs. They ask why pt needs to be wiped over etc. They would just leave pt there covered in urine if they aren't pushed. But that is me being a mother hen with my pt. If I wasn't, no one else would be. If I was placed at PA for clinicals, I would love it though, as there is so many areas due to being a major hospital. The other two hospitals are very small, not a 'go to' place and their scope of practise is not as much, so less areas to work in.

Also, congrats on getting an early offer!

PA is a Great hospital to learn...people are good and they have excellent best practices, amongst the very best in QLD. UQ's nursing school is in Ipswich. I have to be a bit skeptical as to what a student can do within an ED setting. ED nurses have to complete a transition program covering advance life support and other skills relevant to the the workplace before they can work as an unencumbered member on the floor. i.e. not restricted to what they can do within the nursing practice.

I would tend to recommend learning in an acute ward where you learn about the presentations of diseases and morbitidies, and how the medical team approaches treatment, In ED, the interventions are very REACTIVE...which means their priority is to preserve life and stabilised a pt.

There are differences in practices between public and private hospitals. In public hospitals, you tend to hav easy access to doctors and other medical staff especially after office hours. I find that some private hospitals are under so much pressure to bow to doctors that they bend rules at the risk and expense of nurses. I can share one example where I worked ina private hospital and we needed a phone order. We got hold of the pt's doctor after hours, he wasn't too impressed and when he gave the order for meds, he could not be bothered to repeat to another nurse a practice that ensures that the order is heard by at least 2 nurses as a safeguard. The next day, the even refuse to sign the stat phone order because it was too troublesome. The nurse manager has given up pushing for safe practice because the hospital relies on these specialist to bring in case loads (i.e. money$$$$). If anything goes wrong, the medication chart will only bear the initials of the nurse who got the phone order and without the doctor signing it off later, means he can den the order. Well sorry but someone's registration's gonna get burn and it ain't the doctor's.

Anyways congrats for securing your placement..all the best