 five back at university and today it's all about research. I'm hoping on the timetable it says group work so I think we're just going to go into our poster group hopefully and finish some little bits off for our poster I'm hoping that's what it's going to be but this is one of the books I got from the library this one and I've got another one and because I'm not in university till 12 today I've got up early and I've been going through these books to get some references for our poster template so that's my morning so far hopefully it's going to be a great day and I'll see you all later so dog's in the way definitely fell over my own feet and joey two days at uni I feel like a real student today and I've got the weekend off I haven't got tomorrow off actually I've got I've picked up a bank shift tomorrow so I'm going to be working tomorrow but only 10 till half four so it's not like it's a long day or anything and then I'm off Sunday so which today should be Sunday if you're watching this so if you're all having a great Sunday let me know so what have I been up to at uni this week so Monday we started the session off with empowerment and we spoke about dementia because that's what our assignment's about and how we can empower people of dementia and this session was really good it's really interactive the lecturer put on this youtube clip which I'll find it and I'll put it below if you're interested in watching that it's called Barbara's Story and it's all about how someone with dementia feels and what their typical day might involve for them and the different steps that they take and it just it gives you a really good insight to how someone with dementia feels and it's so saddening that you watch it and you get quite emotional watching it so the lecturer stopped the video at each point and she said okay how can we improve this situation how could the healthcare professionals act differently what could they do better in this situation asking those restaurants to get us thinking and we all got it luckily everybody in that room got it and they said you know what this isn't right what they were seeing they knew it wasn't right and that's so good to see and I don't personally think there's enough training out there for communication needs with different patients because it doesn't matter what field of nurse in your training in whether you're adult child mental health learning disabilities you are going to deal with those sort of patients out there anytime anywhere and you need to know how to deal with those sort of patients effectively to provide that best care possible to that patient because they should be having the same equal rights as the person that you've just seen that doesn't have maybe mental health issues or they don't have dementia if they're just a patient without any sort of needs why are they being treated differently to somebody that does have those extra communication needs it shouldn't be happening and I personally feel that there's not enough communication there's definitely not enough communication training out there for people with a variety of needs and it's definitely something that's needed if they want to provide that best care possible for that patient they need it so sorry slightly off topic there but this session was amazing I took away quite a lot from that session just makes you feel quite emotional watching it and you sort of think to yourself okay so if I have a patient with dementia in future in my own practice what will I do differently what will I do for that patient to meet their communication needs so not only is it good for the assignment it's good for your own professional values and it's just amazing so then the next session of the day was law and ethics so the law and ethics session we were talking more about impairing ethics and morals and what the difference is because in our assignment we're going to be talking about the law and ethics and policies and procedures around dementia and specific needs of somebody with dementia so it was a really good session really insightful and yeah there's not much I can say about law and ethics because it's just it is what it is so law and ethics another great session it's going to be useful not only for our assignment but for our own professional values as well to know what's morally right or wrong and it's just great it's a great session I love these sessions and I think I'm really really learning from them all so that's a bonus not just for the assignment so when win situation really isn't it I had a couple of days off Tuesday Wednesday I literally pretty much did nothing I had two amazing days off it was just so nice to just be off me and my partner just literally just chilled we took the dog for a walk and I can't even remember what else did we did went to mary hill as you do I can't remember what else we did oh went for food oh my god so there's this little pub in Sutton Colfield called the greenhouse and it's absolutely beautiful the food is always divine when you go it's really reasonable priced and inside is just it's stunning the way that they they've redesigned it and it's just you need to go I'll put the link below for that because you need to go they're just fantastic and we've been there a few times now and I've never had a bad experience the staff are so friendly the food is amazing and presentable like it looks gorgeous on your plate and you can take dogs so we took joey so joey had a great time so then I was back to uni yesterday we were in nine till five but we finished at three o'clock and it was great okay so in the morning we had child safeguarding which is is always emotional it is is safeguarding and how to protect your patients basically no matter where you are doesn't matter what field you're in you're going to see children you're going to see different fields of nursing this session was really good to just make you more aware of the signs to look out for and if you've got any risks who to report them to so it's a really nice session as emotional and draining as it is to listen to that sort of thing because it's sad you don't want to hear stories about children being abused it's horrible but it's it was a good session and I took her a lot away from it and I learned even if you're a student nurse you can report it directly yourself and then our next session was we had this man come in that works for the NHS so he was a clinical quality assurance facilitator that's a mouthful he does all the ccgs and he was just fantastic so he came in he told us his role what he does what is the purpose of his role is getting us thinking more about care planning and how we're writing our care plans what can go wrong if you don't document things from that NHS point of view so that was really good and not only that he talked about nursing homes and I have worked in nursing homes for around I don't work there anymore I moved to sexual health there four years ago but before that I worked in nursing homes for a mixture of nursing homes and residential homes for around six years six yeah about six years five years that was six years give or take and I love working in nursing homes I hate I was a HCA in nursing homes and residential homes and I loved it I've got a massive love for the elderly and massive respect and I just I do love it and he was there promoting it because there is a massive shortage of staff in nursing homes and I mean there's a shortage of staff everywhere within the NHS there's a massive need for nurses right now but I I don't know what's going to happen to nursing homes if we don't get the stuff in and it just is sadden me a bit because he spoke about two nursing homes in Birmingham that are actually closing down and it's not because they've got bad reputation or anything like but it's because they physically have no staff and that's really sad because where are those patients going to go where are they going to put those patients those patients are going to be carted from one home to another home and these are quite frail patients what is going to happen to them is just it's not right it's not right um joey joey's come to say hello best to him yeah he's a good boy okay you're ruining my video joey's decided he's going to be a movie star so he's practising in these little tiny blogs that I do and he's going to make the big screen aren't you yeah gonna be the big screen yeah he is um okay so what was I saying about nursing homes before joey rudely interrupted and you're still interrupting why are you doing this okay come on get down good boy okay so nursing homes if you've never worked in a nursing home before and you're interested in it even if you're not interested in it you might have heard some myths about working in nursing homes erase those myths erase the stigma and just give it a go go out on a placement maybe just even volunteer go in for a day a short shift or something just to get some sort of insight to what working in a nursing home is really like and just think about it because we're at a massive shortage at the minute of nurses everywhere and every single place and we're all going to be elderly at some point in our lives it's inevitable we're going to be that person um that might be us we might need a home to go to to live in for someone else to care for us what is going to happen if there's no nurses to care for us it's just it's one of the most important I think it's one of the most important places I mean I know I love general practice and general practice is my love as well as sexual health but actually nursing homes is another love of mine the more you think about nursing homes you just your heart breaks and you think who is going to care for these patients who's going to care for us so yeah have a look at working in a nursing home um it's a great experience you'll learn so much so let's move on so our last session of the day was evaluation and tutorials for our care plan and rationale and our leaflet and rationale and luckily I had my draft for my leaflet rationale and I took it because I really wanted to know that I was on the right track and that I'd written it right because I'd never written a rationale before I didn't know how to structure it and yeah so I took it in and I just said to the tutor you know just please just look at these couple of lines just to make sure I'm on the right track and she said yeah fine so she looked at it and she said yeah on the right track I just need to add a little bit more detail and that'll be that it'll be done and I said to you last week that I was gonna do my care plan and I've done it I've finished my care plan I just need to write the first draft of my rationale which I'm hoping to do this week and finish it by next week once I've done my rationale I can focus on my maths revision because maths if I'm gonna fail anything at university life it's gonna be maths I'm terrible and I'd be fine if they just put simple not even simple if they just put the equation down for me to work out I'd be fine but it's the way it's worded and they put this long-winded story the doctor gives you this you need this convert this into this it just baffles me and I spend too much time analysing things and then I run out of time and I get it wrong because I'm panicking so I need to practice 100 practice practice practice because if I don't I'm going to fail and there's not going to be much I'm going to do about that it doesn't matter how good of a nurse you are if you fail maths you are gone so I need to get on it I need to go to personal development department as well to brush up on my math skills and any tutorials out there so fingers crossed my maths is going to be okay so that's it for this week I haven't got much to say I'm on my bank shift tomorrow I haven't done a bank shift for ages because I was on my general practice placement I was Monday to Friday I didn't physically didn't have time to do any shifts so I feel like I haven't done a shift for ages so I'm really excited to see everyone because I've been there for four years and they become your family don't they when you're working with people for so long they become your little family so I'm chuffed I can't wait to go to work and see everybody and then Sunday um I'm off I'm gonna post my video and I'm gonna start my care plan rationale and that's it so have a great week everyone whatever you're doing next week is going to be a scorcher in the UK apparently we're getting highs of like 27 I've no idea what I'm going to do with myself and so have a great week enjoy the sunshine and embrace the day