The University Diaries

Week four of hospital placements was based in a Cardiothoracics centre for my intensive care sign off.  The Cardiothoracics centre is important to me to understand as if I have a patient with a stemi that meets required criteria, I would likely be bringing them to this centre as there are only two PPCI centres in my area. Background I was required to be on this placement for three days, for 13 hour shifts.The centre is for planned procedures and emergency cases, whilst also having a really large ward for patients varying in severity from 'ready to go home' to high dependency. I was based in the high dependency part of the ward with the opportunity to end up in different departments throughout the centre, such as the waiting rooms, operating theatres and intensive care. Day 1 With another long day ahead of me, I woke up at 5am, left the house at 5.30am and arrived just before 7am. I went in and found the nurse in charge who directed me to get changed, and then to the staff...

Left to right: high vis trousers, purple stethoscope case, 2018/19 diary, deodorant, epaulettes, hand-cream, lip balm, hairbands, phone charger, PAD, tissues, pens and dried fruit. I have had two years now to work out what I need in my placement bag, and I think I have nearly got it down! My placement bag is a plain old rucksack, which is big enough to fit all my kit in it, but small enough to fit in the kit locker. Trust kit bags are usually long holdalls, and kit lockers were definitely not built for three of these! Here are my placement bag essentials. PPE So first off, we have our personal protective equipment.We get issued with a pair of high vis trousers and a jacket. I have never used the trousers, although I could see myself using them on a long job when it is cold, dark or wet. My trousers live in my bag (with most of the labels on them still... oops!) and my jacket lives in between my bag and just in the kit locker. I try to make sure my jacket it accessible at ...

I've now had two years to badly prepare myself for night shifts. I have done it lots of different ways rightly and wrongly, but this is the way that works best for me! On my days off I try to bulk cook some food and portion it up so I always have a food option for me. I currently do not have much money and picking up unplanned snacks can really break the bank. I also try to get up on laundry, but I only wash laundry at night as we have an economy 7 meter which means I pay less for electric overnight. This makes it difficult as I do not spend a whole day doing laundry... It is a constant slog! 6am I get up nice and early normally anyway, but definitely on night shifts when I am aiming for an afternoon nap. I get up, get dressed (this is so, so important to set yourself in the mood for a productive day!) and have breakfast. Then I will wash up and make sure the house is in order. 7.30am Time to write a to do list! My most productive days are where I write lists that have smal...

Week three, and I am living in my new house! Such a huge adjustment having my own garden and house (I no-longer live in a bungalow - result!) and the un-packing process was definitely not smooth, but here is my placement, yet again. So this placement was purely described to me as 'Prosthetics Mental Health' with no further information given. In-patients, out-patients or community? I had no idea what to expect, and this week was full of surprises. Background Again, I required 37.5 hours for my placement block, however I knew this was not possible. Monday was the bank holiday, and the clinic was open from 9 to 4 every day (except weekends and bank holidays). I was asked to arrive for 10am - a huge lie in! I spoke to my university placement contact who assured me that my hours would be made up (presumably with my ambulance placement). Day 1 So I live approximately one hour from this placement, but due to its location being very close to London, I gave myself about 2 hours to...

So my second week of hospital placements was in Labour Ward! This was really exciting to me because I wondered whether or not I should be a midwife and I am really excited for the first time that I will catch a baby on my own on the road! If you have not read about my first week of placement, that can be found here . Background So I required 37.5 hours for this placement block, which equates to three long days as the midwives work 12.5 hour days. I worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (and then I moved house!) so the week was quite tiring. I was at the same hospital that I did my Acute Medical Unit placement in, which was great as I knew roughly where to park and how long it would take me to get to and from placement (approximately 30 minutes). I was not given any prior information and I was not designated a mentor, so I just turned up on my first day! Day 1 My day started at 6am (which is quite the lie in after the previous week!). I had breakfast and some tea and left the house...

Hello everyone! Over the past couple of weeks, I have been flapping like a fish out of water; and this is why! We are on our 'out of ambulance placements', ie our hospital placements. We have five weeks of hospital placements in both Year 2 and Year 3, and the Acute Medical Unit was my first one! I am going to give you an account of these placements so you know what to expect on your degree. I had no idea what to expect but all in all, it was not too bad! Background We have 5 different placements in 5 weeks of hospital placements, each week is different. This week was arranged as my Assessment Unit placement, where patients are assessed, examined and begin their pathway. It is arranged by the university and I know that all of my fellow students have been placed all over the county with up to 2 hour travelling times and expensive car parking. We have to make up 37.5 hours each week and we have a POD (Practice Observation Document) which is a bit like a PAD  but more observati...

Left to right: ID badge, stethoscope, radio clip, shears/tough cuts, lip balm, tourniquet,  alcohol gel and clip, pens and pen torch. Here are my uniform essentials! Read on for where I position these items and the bits I did not include on the photo. ID Badge I put this on my collarbone where the loops are, you need your ID badge as ID (obviously) but also to get into the buildings. On your first shift you will need to tap it against the keypad and it will beep to let you in! Just a side note, some ambulance stations have really funny locks on them, so to get out, you may have to turn a grey knob to get yourself out (better to know than not!). Stethoscope I use this  Littman III Cardiology stethoscope (in orange, as you can see) and it is great because it's head twists to hear more sensitive sounds. I generally keep my steth in my knee pockets, however I have two points to make. Firstly, keeping it in your pocket can slightly disfigure it or it can get caught on t...

Once you are over the honeymoon stage of your degree - those wonderful first few weeks where you cannot wait to read your textbooks and read up on everything - the degree marriage life becomes real. Three years feels like an awful long time whilst disappearing in a flash, and quite honestly, I feel like I have been ripped off a bit. If you love every second of your degree life, probably do not keep reading, this could turn out to be a bit negative. I never wanted to go to university. I have always been of the mindset that I want to work, earn my own money, buy a house and live my life. University felt like far too much of a commitment that would get in the way of things I loved. I decided that I wanted to go when I was set on becoming a physiotherapist. I had gone to open days and sat in talks, which is where I heard about the Paramedic Science degree. Since I was small, I wanted to be a paramedic (as my parents were in the police doing 'exciting' jobs, combined with my love ...

Hi, just as a little intro I am a second year Paramedic Science degree student, currently on my first placement of Year Two. The featured day is a brisk Saturday in November on a placement shift with a crew that I have not worked with before. Most of my shifts are either earlies (starting between 6 and 7am for 12 hours) or lates (starting between 6 and 7pm for 12 hours). This was a weird shift time of 1100 to 2300, which is annoying as it straddles two meal times as you only get one meal break. Surprisingly enough, I actually quite liked this time, however I do prefer really early shifts as you still have a bit of the evening when you get home. This account is completely true! The variety of patients fluctuates day to day, and this was one of the more interesting ones, but this may also be as it was a Saturday. The times are as close to accurate as possible. We had fewer patients than a usual shift, but travelling times and patient contact time was greater than normal. We did no...

So, I am half way through my first trimester and I thought it would be a good idea to give an update because I have had quite a few fellow students ask how I have been finding it! I am glad I am actually helping others with my experience! The first month in second year was a ball.  I felt on top with everything. I was working full time and managing a couple of days in uni and everything was grand. I wrote up my lecture notes before the lecture so I could sit, annotate and absorb during the lecture. I found the information and understanding it was stretching me, but in a good way. I kept up! Even in the labs I seemed to be doing pretty well, especially in comparison to the previous year. I was answering questions that others were getting wrong, and I took part in one scenario (with another person as a crew on a truck) where my lecturer said we did the best out of everyone he had seen. I definitely needed this confidence boost as I was feeling a bit deflated as I always felt beh...

I am the definition of a poor student (without a maintenance loan oops) so I have established some handy ways to save money. Let me know if I have missed anything and I'll include it in my next version! Enjoy! Student Amazon Prime (for free) I use Amazon Prime for all my stationery, household items and gifts. I am the Queen of forgetting people's Birthdays (at least I am honest!). I always use (student) Amazon Prime to get reduced price items with free next day delivery. This means I can forget a Birthday until the night before and buy something to give to them the following night. If you use this code then you can receive 6 months free then have a massive reduction to less than £4 a month for a subscription. This also includes films, music and discounts on textbooks. I find it really handy to use as I can decide I want something at 10pm and have it at my door the following day without having to go out and get it. The best part of student amazon prime is that you can can...

So in the first term of the first year at my university, we are required to complete a Skills Passport as part of our Preparation for Clinical Practice module. This was a pass/fail document which was required to pass for you to be able to pass the module alongside an essay and presentation. I do not know if every university completes this module in the same way, but feel free to comment below either way as it is interesting for me and other people! So the passport included various basic skills assessed by peers, such as taking temperatures, manual blood pressures, blood glucose readings (BM) and various manual handling techniques. It also comprised of slightly more serious basic skills assessed by tutors, such as adult and paediatric airways, c-spine immobilisation and basic life support and automated external defibrillator (BLS and AED). There were also requirements to complete the online training modules for areas such as safeguarding and data protection. There were lots of oppor...

Placement is such a hectic place! Due to my shift schedule I am five weeks in but have done 4 blocks due to the four days on, five days off schedule. Somehow I am currently working almost full time over the placement block. I will finish at 6.30am on my last night shift, come home and head to sleep until 12pm, wake up and head to work. This is a great way for me to be able to afford placement, but I don't have a life! It is very difficult acting this way, especially as I am either on placement or asleep the rest of the time. Fortunately due to the crews I am working with, I am enjoying the shifts so much it feels less like a job and more like a lifestyle. Update on my First Five Weeks I have had such a variety of shifts. I am placed on the border of London, but as we do not respond to London Ambulance Service (LAS) calls, we can only head out in one direction, which means we regularly finish (very) late. On the plus side, you must have 11 hours between shifts, so usually if yo...