Started my nursing course!

hi Mara,

i noticed your in melbourne and am just wondering where you are doing the div 2 course that your doing it one day per week? im also in melbourne and considering doing the div 2 course.

Jules

Hello Jules and Jay,

In answer to your questions, the course I am doing is the Cert IV in Nursing at Box Hill Institute (TAFE). I am completing it part-time over 2 years, 2 days a week.

Jay, my current work is entirely unrelated - call centre work for an insurance company! But I am looking forward to working as a Div 2 (EN) while I complete my my Div 1 (RN) - that is my intention.

I am enjoying the course so far, except that it has been terribly disorganised. We never really knew more than just one week in advance what our class timetable was for the whole of term 1, so it made it hard to prepare for classes. But I just had a heart attack when I logged on to the online system and found the whole of the term 2 timetable up and running! Hurray! They must be getting the picture, after so many of us kept emailing the course coordinator.

Having said that, the actual course has been great. Highly recommend it.

Cheers all! Thanks for the replies.

Mara.

Hey Sushimaker,

Yes, our course includes Medications. Rumour has it that we will have (eventually) have canulation included too!

Cheers.

Hi Alli and others,

Well, the course is going well. I've just finished my first clinical placement - and it was fantastic! I was so scared before going out there after all the horror stories I'd heard from other students, but although it had a few challenges, I learned so much!

The biggest surprise for me, and for the other 7 students in my group, was how much we enjoyed Aged Care. Admittedly, none of us was particularly looking forward to an Aged Care clinical rotation, but it ended up being the best place to really learn the basics.

As required by our course, I kept a reflective journal over the 2 weeks, and I can't believe the changes in the entries over such a short period of time! It was such a busy, intense period, and we were lucky to have a great Clinical Teacher with us who was really relaxed but also put in a lot of effort with us.

During the 2 weeks, I learned the usual basic skills (obs & UA, hygiene and showering, making LOTS of beds) plus got to get a look into what some of the documentation looks like in Aged Care - all of a sudden, Care Plans make so much more sense when I can relate them to a real person! But apart from this, it taught me about attitude - as other posters on NurseCentral have said many times, the littlest things can make a huge difference to a client.

It was such a privilege to care for and get to know the residents, we all got a bit emotional on our last day!

We were also confronted by a few deaths during our time there, and some of us had cared for those residents in the final stages. During our debrief that day, we talked a lot about our feelings on death and dying, and that was far more relevant to me than discussing it in a lecture theatre a few months ago.

Most of us had a really good experience, but one student was really struggling and couldn't see where they were going wrong - although it was a bit strained at times in group sessions, I think we all gained a lot from the extra material and coaching that resulted from our Clinical Teacher.

To give you an idea of the success of the 2 weeks, out of 8 students, 5 of us have applied for work there as Personal Care Attendants! Still haven't found out if I have a job there - wish me luck! Of course it will be different being a PCA working there, compared to a nursing student - but we spent so much time buddying with the PCAs there that we have a fairly good idea of what their work is like.

So I just want to encourage anyone out there who is nervous about their first placement, or is feeling less than excited about an Aged Care placement, to realise that some placements will be fantastic, some may not be, but you can learn something wherever you are. I learned not to be afraid to ask to do something if you feel you can (supervised, of course), and you'll surprise yourself with how much you can learn and how much confidence you can gain over just a few days with some support. Also, by putting in just a little extra effort (for example, I did a little bit of reading each night on the things we were expected to do the following day), you'll be ready to answer any questions your CT may ask and have some good rationales for the tasks you do, not just look at your residents like a list of tasks.

Phew!

Now back to the books for me, I have assigments and exams galore!

Hey everyone.
Well im not due to do my first placement till feb or march next year.. which will be aged care, although i am looking forward to it. 80% of my class already work as PCA's so i've heard plenty of stories.. good and bad.. my boyfriends sister who is doing div 1 just finished her first placement and had an absolute ball.
I only started my course in august so yeah.. i've got a few more tests and essays to get through first before placements begin.
Was boxhill tafe able to get placements close by?? or did u have to do a bit of travelling??

Hello and Happy New Year to all the qualified and student nurses out there!

I'm currently half way through my Div 2 course and I did end up getting the PCA job I applied for at the facility where I did my placement. I worked there for about 5 weeks and just resigned the other day.

I've learned alot during my time there and have a real appreciation and respect for PCAs who work in Aged Care for a long time! I found it both rewarding and confronting. Although I don't think Aged Care will be for me, I learned several useful things as a PCA that I didn't get to learn on my placement and will be taking with me as I go on my remaining 3 placements in the next 6 months.

I really enjoyed getting to know the residents better, and consolidating things like assisting with ADLs. I worked mostly in high care, so I also had a chance to apply some of the theory we learned in nursing classes while working.

Part of the reason I decided to stop working as a PCA is that I'll be studying full time for the remainder of my course, and since I found the shifts exhausting, I didn't want to burn out before I even qualify as a nurse.

Does anyone else balance PCA work with studying nursing? How do you cope with the discrepancies between the ideals taught in the classroom and the reality out on the floor? I guess that also applies to nurses - do you see any differences in the nurse you've turned out to be with the nurse you once thought you'd be?

I wonder if part of it is the limitations of academic versus hospital based training. I think that some of it, in our class' case, is that fact that all our teachers are Div 1's (they have to be, in order to be qualified to teach at TAFE). None of the teachers I had last year had ever been a Div 2, and only one had worked as a PCA. Most are wonderful and passionate about nursing and nurse education, but I definitely saw a big difference out there.

Any ideas? Just thought it might make an interesting discussion!

Mara.