The University Diaries

The Practice Assessment Document (PAD) will rule your life during your 10 weeks of placement in your first year of uni. Here are my tips for passing your PAD, and how to make it easier. Enjoy! What is the PAD and what does it include? The PAD is your evidence for completing certain skills whilst on placement which is pass or fail. Your mentor (or PED) has to fill it out identifying which jobs you have been exposed to, and how you handled them. They can grade you as assisted (needing help), minimal supervision (the odd prompt here or there) or independent (woo, go you! Did it safely all by yourself). It includes skills from your Skills Passport and adds in other essential skills too, such as: airway management, cervical spine immobilisation, fracture splinting, IM injections and signposting to alternative pathways. There is are patient assessment pages, which patients fill out about how they feel you treated them, and there is a personal review on your time on placement. Your me...

Happy Freshers Week!!! I am sure plenty of students are living with a pretty impressive hangover currently, but that does not give you an excuse to one-up your degree! Whether you are first or final year, here are some tips to boost your productivity and start your year on the right foot. Check Out Your Timetable! Whilst you may not start lectures until October, you should get yourself familiar with your timetable ASAP. Get a big wall planner or a diary and write down every lecture, lab time and activity that you want/have to go to. If societies have meets, write it down. If your degree has optional sessions, write it down. If you record everything, when you come to book in other things then you cannot forget anything. Last year I missed most of our optional forums as I did not write them down, causing me to miss some fun education and free pizza. As you pay over £9000 for your degree, you may as well try to go to everything offered to get your moneys worth from the university. I...

I love amazon. It is the best and biggest shop which you can browse in your PJs with a glass of wine. Sounds perfect to me! Here are the deals which have been created to make life far easier for the everyday busy-bodies, like you and I. Amazon Prime - 30 Day Free Trial Annually, Amazon Prime costs just £79, which is still a bargain for the likes of me, as it frequently saves me when I remember I am attending someone's Birthday party the night before it is due. Next day and first class delivery generally costs between £3 and £7 (total rip-off unless you are transporting a grand piano etc). What people do not always realise, is that Prime also allows you to watch loads of popular movies and TV shows, including exclusive programs (such as The Grand Tour - such a good show), for free! Newer updates of Prime also include free music, kindle e-books, and photo storage! A free trial can be obtained here , and if you do not like it, cancel within the 30 days and you will not have to p...

I think that academic year 2018/19 sounds really exciting! I am currently going into Year 2 of my Paramedic Science BSc with other plans and ventures in mind. Here are some rambles from me which may motivate you to be a better you in the coming academic year. My Degree Plans   So Year 2 is where is gets serious. All of your grades count and second year is considerably harder than first year! I have been told by my lecturer to start revising for my pharmacology exam over the summer as there is lots to learn, so I need to start that soon. I also plan to be far more organised when it comes to essay writing as all of my essays in first year were completed unnecessarily stressfully and I know that I could easily start and finish them earlier, probably producing work of a better quality. I plan to go to all of my lectures (I missed one or two last year from being ill) and to try to fully absorb the information by reducing my distractions (talking, playing on my phone etc). I am al...

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...

I have been lifeguarding since I was 16. I qualified from a six day course with an assessment nearly four years ago, and it was one of the best decisions that I have ever made! I have made lots of money from it (as you are skilled you are on a higher wage), you have a highly valuable skill and it looks really impressive to universities and on a CV. Lifeguarding definitely helped me for my application onto a Paramedic Science degree. What does it involve? The time I turned the pool water pink/purple The initial National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) covers lifesaving, first aid and theory. The course is usually six days with the exam at the end. The course is not difficult, although does require focus to pass. You are taught lifesaving: tows, spinal preservation and rescue, defensive blocks within the water, first aid: similar to a First Aid at Work Level 3 Qualification, with a variety of skills, such as bandaging, recognising seizures and hypoglycemic events and basic l...

Firstly, before you read the rest of this post, sign up here . Yes this is a link attached to my page, however it will give you £30 to get started. Secondly, this is a page that makes you as much money as the effort you put in. Your skill set will increase with practice, and you can decide what you want to specialise in. It is not just for uni students, but this is many people's full time job. Use this knowledge wisely and I am sure you will do just fine! What is it? It is a company where freelance workers can apply for jobs and advertise their expertise to people needing work done. You can also ask for help, but you will have to pay for this! What can I offer? Anything! But do remember that this site mainly focuses on online jobs so you ought to be handy with a computer. If you are good at image editing, transcription, translation, blog post writing and social media endorsing then looking for jobs is really easy. The search bar means you can look specifically for what you w...

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...

My placement schedule is usually 2 days, 2 nights, 5 days off (which is really good). One in every 4 shifts there is an extra day shift in there as this is the pattern my mentor has on her line, which I follow. With this placement I have been really lucky to get a mentor who is on a line at a station as this means that my shifts are set (basically a year in advance) and I only have one mentor (unless I have to make up any shifts as I cannot do them). On placement, I am one of the lucky ones! Lots of people have multiple mentors and stations, and I am very lucky that I have been given consistency as I do get quite anxious at not being in control of the situation and not knowing what the outcome will be. This week went from being a long, 3 days and 2 nights, week, to a 3 days and 1 night. I have had a shift moved, which my mentor kindly discussed when we could both do this shift as she had to change it due to her mentoring course (to mentor me). Some mentors are willing to be flexibl...