A&E for me

Today I have completed my very first shift in A&E as a student nurse and I loved it. I was looking forward to it ever since I found out I had a placement there but as time ticked on I started to become more and more nervous about what might unfold and that I'd be thrown in at the deep end.

As it turned out I was thrown in at the deep end...'You'll be in Resus this afternoon' (What???) But it was fine. There is actually an air of calm about the whole place which I shall be reassured by if I ever end up there in a state of emergency. I didn't want to jinx it by saying the immortal words 'oh this is quieter than I thought it'd be' but as it happened it was a pretty ok shift. I helped with a chest drain on a lady with a pneumothorax (air collecting between the lung and chest wall which stops the lung from inflating properly for the non-medical peeps out there), a man with breathing problems who, when he was brought in looked so ill I seriously thought his number was up (he was fine BTW), a man who had half a tone of steel girder dropped on his foot (ouch!),a guy with AF (irregular heartbeat), and an old lady whose hip had dislocated. And that was only half the shift.

I'm half pleased and half disappointed that there was no major trauma incidents to deal with. Obviously I don't wish awful injuries on people but the learning I would get from that would be immense.  According to my mentor there have been shifts where there has been about 5 separate incidents resulting in 5 deaths in as many hours. Which is quite scary when you stop and think about it. But maybe saving that until after day one was a good thing for little old me.

Of course there was stuff on the flip side of the coin too. The old man who had already been banned from another hospital for being aggressive, who came in with a sore throat. Yes you read that right, a sore throat FFS, the agressive drunken girl, and the man who thought it fitting upon being asked to remove his top so he could have an ECG, to throw it at my head in an attempted striptease and ask if I wanted to also remove his pants.

But I took it all with good humour and just got on with the job, letting things unfold in front of as they will. But the highlight of my day was when a patient I had been comforting through a procedure due to her fear of needles turned to me and said 'you'll make a great nurse.'

Now THAT felt good.