 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. So I have been asking for all of your questions on TikTok and most of them are about being a general practice nurse. So I thought I would turn them into a Q&A for YouTube, for the people that aren't on TikTok, that don't know about it, just to gather all of the questions and my answers for you and hopefully they're gonna help you out today. So guys, I have swapped to my laptop. The laptop isn't the best quality, I'm sorry. But yes, we're here and hopefully you get all the information but this is just so I can get on my phone and show you my TikTok. So this is my TikTok, just in case you don't know. Go give me a follow. And on my TikTok, we've got a Q&A which is what we're gonna go through right now for you. So first question is, tip for nursing interviews. So first things first, be yourself, be passionate, show that passion, show that motivation, show that dedication to nursing is by far most the biggest tip. Try and relax and be yourself which can be really, really hard, I know. But the more you relax, the more you open up and the more you show that personality, the more they're warm to you and think, oh, this person could be a good person for us. Standard questions that most places ask, whether it's a nursing interview, whether it's for a university interview, they always ask, why do you want to apply here? So why do you want this position if you're applying for a practice nursing, for example, why do you wanna apply for it to be a practice nurse if you're applying to a university? Okay, what is it about our university that makes you want to apply to us? They're the sort of standardized questions that most people ask. And then things like, where do you see yourself in five years' time? Them sort of questions, they are pretty standard. It's what people are sort of trying to gauge, are you gonna be with us long-term? Are you gonna be with us the short-term? What are your long-term goals? Think about the sort of replies that you might wanna put for that. Also, for university, I know I was asked all about the six C's and to give examples. So think about that sort of reply and what you would give if it's for a university. However, not everyone asks about this, but it's just good to be over-prepared than under-prepared. Other things that you might need to know if it's for a nurse-specific job, you might need to know about the trust, you might need to know about the patients, the population, they might ask you questions about the things like what do you know about us? That's quite a common one as well. They ask at the beginning, tells a bit about yourself. That's another common one. They might give you some scenario. So normally there's an angry patient or angry family member sort of scenario. What sort of things you would do if you made an error or a mistake? How you would handle things like if you saw something unprofessional going on in the workplace? Those sort of questions and scenarios are normally sort of thrown at you as well. So think about what you would reply to something like that as well. So I hope that helps for that question, but I have done a whole vlog on going to university interviews and nursing tips as well. So have a look at my other YouTube videos for all of that information. And the next question is, is there a certain point in your uni degree where you get to choose what you want to specialise in? So I think it very much depends on your university and what they do. I know Birmingham City University when I was there between 2017 to 2019. We sort of just generalised throughout all of it. We didn't go into any speciality or anything like that. It was more general and getting to know your anatomy and physiology. Your placements would be very, very varied. I didn't know mind where, so I had surgical. I had community. I had primary care, which is why I love it. And I had stroke wards. I had orthopedics. I had abdominal surgery. I had a really nice mix actually for my placements. I was very, very lucky. But you don't really specialise as such, if that makes sense. You just sort of decide what area you want to go into work in and go for it. However, don't feel bad if you don't know which area you want specialised in. You don't know where to go. A lot of people find this and even qualified nurses are working in certain areas. They still haven't found their passion or where they need to be in life, if that makes sense. So please don't feel bad if you don't know where to go or whatever. Don't feel bad about it. But things that you can do is think about what have you loved during your degree? So if you're coming to your end of your three years, what have you loved? What have you been most interested in and start there? Also, some trusts do what they call rotation perceptorship. So you'll be so many weeks or months in one area, then they'll swap you to another area and then another area. And this is really good to get a feel of different areas that you might not have experienced before as well. Also, you could probably ask for different pathways as well. So if you're coming to management placement or even on any placement, really, whichever point you're in, if there's somewhere you're really, really interested in, ask for a pathway day there and see if they'll allow you to release you for the day to go there. Also, you can ask for shadow shifts or experience. This is what I did as well. So as a student nurse, we had our community scoping experience where we were allowed to pick and choose little places where we would go for the four weeks. And I picked random things just because I was so interested in getting to know how the system of the NHS works. So I went to sit with safeguarding teams. I went to this amazing training session on modern day slavery because I'm really interested in safeguarding. That's one of my passions as well. But another area that I went to was the package of care team or the continuing healthcare teams who set up and organise all of the package of care for patients and hospitals and people at home and primary care community and all that. I was so interested in that and how it works. And it blew my mind. Anyone out there, if you can get a chance to go and sit with them for a day, your mind will be blown. The amount of stuff that they have to do and go through and the amount of errors that are made and the application forms from trusts and primary care teams and community teams, whoever's filling out those forms to apply for the package of care is unreal. Like I had no idea and it opened my eyes completely. So if you can get a chance to go and do that, it's really, really, really beneficial to you and your practice in future. So yeah, think outside the box and just go for it. Next question. This is an easy, quick one I think. Which part, are you part of a union? And if so, how much is it? Yes, yes, yes. I'm part of the Royal College of Nursing, RCN union. I chose this union as a student because they are specific to nursing, whereas other unions aren't. They sort of deal with all different companies and trusts and things like that. So I wanted someone specific for nursing who were nurses and they could understand what we go through, not just the law side of things, but also the RCN are really good. They've got a whole careers team to help you with applications, personal statements, CVs. They've got online library access to journals. They do free training sessions and events. It's just amazing. So that's why I personally picked RCN is because I do love everything that they do. So as a student, I pay 10 pound a year or you can pay 84 pence a month. It's well worth it if you need them and they need to help you. But it's worth it just to get the references from the library to get journal articles for your assignments. It's well worth it. So definitely, definitely have a look at the RCN compared to other ones. I mean, I'm not biased at all in this as well. I could go with any, I'm not part of any affiliation or sponsorships or anything with that. So yeah, not biased guys, promise. But now as a qualified nurse, I do pay 16 pounds a month, which is steep. However, they do cover you and you do get free access to events and things like that and training and webinars. Also, if I really, really needed help, I know that they would be hopefully helping me. So yeah, I'm happy to pay 16 pounds for all of that. Next up on the TikTok Q and A, we have, when you qualify as a nurse, do you need to do additional training to work in a GP or do they provide the training? Absolutely. Yes, for both of them questions. So you do need additional training just because as nurses at university, we don't learn to do baby immunizations unless your child feels maybe you do, but I was at adult field, so I didn't have any of that. And then also for cervical screening, for example, like we weren't taught how to do that, it's a completely separate course. So you do need to do separate training. However, you need to be a general practice nurse first before you start the training, if that makes sense, because you need to, when you're doing the training, especially for cervical screening, you have to put it into practice. So I need to then get signed off that I'm competent to do that. So you need to actually be in a role that does that to get signed off, if that makes sense, and like the baby immunizations as well. So I did all the training, but then you have to show that you're competent. So you have to go through everything with a mentor at your workplace and actually do the baby immunizations and things like that. So yeah, so get the job first and then the training after. There is funding for newly qualified nurses and any nurse new to general practice, there is funding to be able to give you that training and your local CCGs should have that funding for you. So ask about it, apply for it, and hopefully you'll get fully funded for it. Oh, this is a really good one, actually. Do you recommend nurses do a masters or would you recommend on the job training? I'm looking at doing the SCPHNPG. That's a lot of letters, all in one thing, but I'm definitely not academic. Little laugh and emoji after that. I'm not academic, guys. If I can do this, you can all do it. Come on. So do you recommend nurses do a masters? It depends very much where you want to go. Like if you don't need a masters, then don't do it just for the fun of doing it. Don't put yourself under that unnecessary stress unless you really, really want to do it. And I always say to people, think about your long-term goals. Where do you want to be in the next few years, in the next year, the next two years? And if where you want to be requires you to get a masters, then think about it, then do it, and then start to think about what type of masters do you want to do and how's it going to get to where you need to be. Think about all those little stepping stones. This is exactly what I do. I think about my long-term goals and then I work backwards. So I think, okay, what steps do I need to take to get there? How hard do I need to work to get there? What courses and qualifications do I need to get there? Which is kind of hard because my ambitions change daily in what I want to do. So yeah, so I'm trying and working on it. But the quickest answer for this is you don't need a masters unless you really want to. But on the job training as well is just as good. So I did my course, like I said, but other GP practices train you up separately. So you'll be working and you'll go on day-to-day courses, three-day courses and things like that. And that's okay to do that too because at the end of the day, you're getting certificates to say you're competent and confident in that skill. You're getting certificates so that you can put in your portfolio to take elsewhere. If you move on in life and later down the line, whatever, I don't think it matters if you have a official university qualification or if you're doing on-the-job training because it equals to the same thing, if that makes sense. But yeah, don't worry if you're not academic. Don't worry about it. I'm not academic guys. As long as you're getting past the course, that's all that matters, just yeah. And there's always people to support and help you. Like I said, the RCN have got careers teams, they've got libraries. The university will have support teams, libraries as well so make use of them. Don't suffer in silence guys. There is a lot of questions. I'm sorry, this vlog's gonna be 100 hours long possibly. Do you have to go to uni to become a nurse? So there's 101 different routes now into nursing. It's amazing. You do need an official degree to become a nurse though. However, there are apprenticeships out there so you could be a full-time apprentice nurse. You'll get paid full-time for it. They will fund you for your training. It's a really, really good route as well as the nursing associate route as well. Same thing, you get fully funded for it. You get paid for it as you go. Amazing. However, you will still need to do the degree aspect so you'll still have to do like a day at university or something like that and still do assignments and exams on the side of that. But it's a good way to do it if you can't afford to do a three-year degree full-time. So yes, look into that. There's 101 different routes, just go for it. Oh, I love this one. So if you didn't specialise as a GP nurse, what would you have done? This is an amazing question. I think I briefly spoke about this before. I probably banged on about it a lot actually in my blogs and things. But I really love sexual health. I love women's health. I love all of that. I love LGBT health, trans health in particular because that is missing in the NHS. Not gonna cause any controversy over that right now. But yeah, it's a big gap that's really missing that I've noticed especially as a GP nurse as well. But yeah, I like to raise awareness about these things and I hope that I'm helping people out there by doing that as well. So if I didn't specialise as a GP nurse, it would probably be one of those areas somewhere. I would probably have gone back to sexual health. How difficult was uni work, like writing assignments? What was your favourite uni module? Okay, so first question. How difficult was the work? The thing is, I've said this before, I think if something's only hard if you don't know it, so the more you research, the more you look into something, the more you revise for exams, the better you'll be and the easier you'll find something if that makes sense. So it very much depends how much effort you're willing to put into the results of something. So for me, the difficult part of assignment writing was understanding the assignment brief because it's written in such a way and I always get this question as well in my inboxes and things and people say, I literally have no idea what it's trying to say to me and I say, send me the brief and let me try and break it down if I can. So yeah, that is the hardest part, is breaking down the assignment brief and just thinking, what on earth do these people want from me? Because it's just written in such a way that it's just really confusing of what's expected of you. But once you break it down into sections and then tackle it bit by bit and then as long as your assignment and what you've written meets the assignment brief, meets the market criteria of what they're expecting of you, you should pass, you shouldn't be failing if you've met all of the criteria. So I always say, get the brief up, get the market criteria up, write your assignment following those things because if you don't and you miss things out then they can't give you the marks for it. But to be honest, I didn't find it too difficult. I can't lie. There were assignments that were harder than others just because I didn't enjoy it just because they drained my soul a little bit. It was very, very confusing sometimes and we won't go into that here because I love Birmingham City University and most of the lecturers were absolutely amazing but there were one or two that just threw you off and you didn't have a clue what you were supposed to be doing. I'm really sorry guys. Things like that make it difficult to write an assignment as well. So I'm sorry if you've had that as well. What was your favorite uni module? My favorite was obviously the community section. We had amazing lecturers for that section as well. Actually most of the modules were good. There was some that bored me to death. Anyway, I've waffled. Next question. Can a care home nurse apply to become a GP nurse who has no NHS experience? Absolutely. So I don't know if you know but general practice technically is the private sector and that's because they all fund themselves in a way. They are partly funded by the NHS so the NHS will fund them to meet certain targets. However, each general practice is completely separate from each other so they will be completely independent in what they do, their contracts, their pay, their terms, their conditions, the way they run the services, the hours they wanna run their services is all completely up to them. So you're kind of in the same boat with care homes. Care homes are the same. They're sort of funded in a different way to the NHS. So yeah, so don't worry about not having NHS experience. That's perfectly okay. That's fine. And actually a lot of your skills in working in a care home are gonna help you massively as a general practice nurse because this is most of our population that we see or well I see. I don't know about the majority of everybody else but a lot of people, we are an ageing population. We see all of the long-term conditions in older age adults. We're seeing a lot of frailty. We're seeing a lot of different risk assessments and things like that. So the things that you're doing in care homes can help in general practice nursing especially if you're helping with asthma and COPD and diabetes management, insulin for example. You'd be perfect especially if someone's looking for a diabetes specialist nurse if that's what you do or if you're dealing with hypertension, cardiac problems, all these different medications that you're using. You're gonna be a massive bonus to general practice I'd say. So yeah, don't let that put you off. Just get applying, put all of your transferable skills in the application and go for it. What do you recommend someone buy before starting their degree and an adult nursing student in September? I did do a whole vlog on essential things to buy for nursing but to be honest, as long as you show up, you've got a pen and paper. Don't worry about it. But yeah, if you have a look back on my timeline, on my YouTube, you will find a video all about this. So I'm not gonna go too much into this because the vlog is gonna be way too big for this. So next question. I'm really interested in sexual healthness and want to qualify. Just wondering what kind of progression is there in the field? This is a really good question. So I know in the umbrella services across Birmingham they do this amazing thing at the minute. So they are recruiting newly qualified nurses and they've got this two year program set up for you. So you start off as a band five and by the end of the two years, you will be a band six. So they will train you up, give you all the training, all the skills necessary to become a band six, which I think is amazing. I haven't seen anywhere else do this. So Birmingham Umbrella, you are doing fantastic with this. Thank you so, so much. Big it up for the Umbrella guys and the Umbrella team. Not biased at all because they used to work there. But when looking around, I haven't seen anywhere else do this. So this is amazing. But other types of progression, you can move up to be a band seven nurse. You can be what they call a charge nurse. So you'd be in charge and run the shift. You can go up as well to be a band seven or eight, eight A, eight B. I know a couple of nurses have done this in the Umbrella services again. I don't know about what the services out there, but I'm assuming they've got the same all over the country. Just have a look. Progression, you can go way up the agenda for scale ladder. Oh, not only that. Sorry, a little bit too hard before I leave you. You can't, there's a lot of research and sexual help as well. So you can become a research nurse as well. Think a little bit more around those areas as well. You can go into research. You can be, go from a band five to band eight, for example, you can become matron. So our matron was a nurse who was a nine, eight B. I think, I think they're an eight B. I'm not 100% sure. Don't quote me on that. But yeah, but you can be the sort of manager for sexual health services as well. So there's loads of progression in sexual health that people don't think about. What kind of conditions do you see as a GP nurse? This is a really good question. So things we see are things like hypertension. We do see cardiovascular diseases. We see things like diabetes, asthma, COPD, for example. We see a lot of skin problems as well and skin conditions that we're having to put dressings on and manage and do sort of skincare and skin creaming and things like that. We see a lot of them sort of conditions, but we also do other things like the sexual health, contraception, ECGs, wound management, clip removals, stitch removals, injections, vaccines, travel health, cervical screening, so many different things. Like I can't even think right now because there's so much. We see such a variety and that's why I love general practice. And this is why general practice is called general practice because it's a general of everything. So you need little bits of knowledge of all to sort of be a general practice nurse if that makes sense. It's sort of generalized rather than a specific set thing. Next up, do student nurses learn to catheterise males and females? Do student nurses learn to venopuncture? What are the procedures do you do as a student nurse? Thank you. So first off, do we learn to catheterise? Yes, we do. At Birmingham City University, it was only females that we used to do, something to do with the male anatomy. It wasn't safe for student nurses to really be doing male catheterisation. However, I know that this has been sort of overturned and a lot of people and a lot of universities will train you up to do male catheterisation as well as female. So it just depends what uni you're at and what they do. But ideally, yes, you can train to do both. Do student nurses learn venopuncture? Yes, so the education standards by the NMC 2019 all completely changed in 2019. So there's a lot more skills like catheterisation, IVs, cannulas, and venopuncture were all added to the new skills that you should be doing as a student nurse. So yeah, there's a lot of skills out there that you can do now as a student. It's quite exciting that you can do so much. I absolutely love it. Some people might find it really daunting and scary, but I think it's amazing that you can do so much now. It's fantastic. So many different skills you can do as a student, not just that those sort of clinical skills, like think about more communication, personal hygiene, personal care, those sort of things are really, really important as well, those fundamental skills of being a nurse. It's not always just about the clinical skills as well. Next up, what happens after you get your pin? Does the pin have an expiration? Expiration, expiration, why can't I say expiry date? Oh, yes, basically, it does have an expiry date. So your pin, you have to renew your pin every single year. It's 120 pounds through the NMC, and you have to pay that, and you have to meet all of the standards requirement. You have to sign up to say that you're a good judge or character, you've got a good character of health, all of that jazz to keep your pin basically. And then every three years, you will do your NMC re-evalidation, which includes doing a whole load of CPD hours, reflections, and clinical hours that you have to meet as well. You can find all this on the NMC website. You just Google NMC re-evalidation, it all comes up, and there are all the things that you have to meet. And to be honest, it sounds a lot, but it's really not. You're doing all of these anyway. It's just a way of recording them and documenting it to show that you are competent at your job. But yes, basically, you have to pay for your pin every year, otherwise it expires. Do you have any tips for getting documents signed off whilst on placement? A lot of people seem to talk about this as being a challenge. That's not good. So I know it can get very, very busy and people sort of forget to sign documents and keep track of these things. So it's really important that you sort of speak to your practice assessor, practice supervisor, whoever that is, whoever's looking after you and get your documents signed off as you go. Because if you leave it all to the end, it can be a bit of a nightmare. I had this on my very first placement. My mentor waited till the very end and then she had my whole book to sign and she was like, oh my God, this is so much. And I said, I told you, because I had been sort of prompting and trying to get things signed off, but it was really difficult at the time. But again, like I said, the NMC standards have changed now. We don't have one mentor anymore. So anyone can sign your documents if they're a registered sort of person. So anyone like any nurse can sign, occupational therapists can sign, physiotherapists can sign, doctors can sign, consultants can sign. Anyone around you can sign as long as they have supervised you doing something and they can say that you're competent and confident to do it. They can sign you off for doing that particular skill. However, it's only down to your main assessor person who is gonna sign you off for the whole placement that can sign you off at the end, if that makes sense. But just for specific skills throughout your documents, people can sign if they've seen you do it and they know that you're okay at doing it. So don't just go to the one person. If anyone saw you do anything, go to them as well. And if it's becoming too much of a problem, just raise your concerns, speak to the team, see if they can put something in place to help you get things signed off. If there's any particular areas you can't get signed off in your book from that placement in particular, ask if you can have a pathway somewhere to help you get things signed off. So do a day somewhere else that might do more IVs, for example, that's a skill that you need signed off. Just ask for that help and hopefully they should be helping you. If not, raise your concerns again, speak to your university and see if they can do something about it. What is your nursing career plan? Do you want to be a prescriber and become an advanced clinical practitioner, see, treat, and diagnose by yourself? For me, as a student, that is something I really wanted to do because I sat with an advanced nurse practitioner. I thought they were amazing. I thought everything they could do was fantastic. However, as a general practice nurse now, I'm thinking I'm not too sure I want that role. I'm so divided between it because it would take me away from the skills that I do now, if that makes sense. They're two completely different roles. And I think a lot of people think of becoming an ANP or ACP. They're both the same thing, really. I think people think that's the next step up from a nurse, but actually it's a completely different role. It's more, I always think of this role as you're a junior doctor in a way because you are seeing the patient, you're assessing them, you're diagnosing them and you're treating them. I always see that role as more of a junior doctor type of role rather than a nurse role. And it would take me away from doing a lot of my nurse things, like my long-term conditions, my cervical screening, my wound management, or my baby immunizations and that sort of a thing. My future career is possibly, but not possibly that. But I do absolutely love teaching. I found a real passion of it as a student nurse, actually, in helping other students. And I want more of that role. So as some of you might know already, I've got a new role coming up. So I'm the super practice assessor now for the Hampshire area. So if you're a student in Hampshire or Southampton, Portsmouth, I think Isla White come under it. I'm not too sure. Don't quote me on that. But in this sort of area, if you're down this area, then you might see my face because I'm gonna be your super practice assessor, hopefully. So that'll be really, really good. And I'm gonna be taking on a lot more students and things like that. So that's gonna be making me really happy, but I would really love to go into, I would like to be an academic nurse educator, as well as doing my GP clinics as well to keep up those sort of skills as well. So that is where I see my future. I'm stuck on where to do my third year management placement. I'm second year and I've had three placements so far, AMU, short stay surgical and coronary care. Okay, so I mean, we couldn't choose our management placement. However, they did say that we could put in a request. So if you've been given a job somewhere before you go into your management placement, you can request to do that place as your management placement, if that makes sense. So for example, if you had a job offer in AMU, you can request AMU as your management placement to make that transition smoother. And I think that is the way forward, guys. Like if you are going through this at the minute, you've been offered a job somewhere, request it for your management if you can, speak to your placement teams, because I think that's gonna really, really, really help that transition from student nurse into newly qualified nurse. It's gonna help you get settled. It's gonna be amazing, I think. I wish I had had that, I think, for my transition, because that transition is quite hard, jumping from student to newly qualified nurse suddenly, whereas that would just help the process. But okay, so if you have a choice and you're allowed to request your management placement, think about where you love. Where did you really, really like? What sort of places would you like to experience? Maybe it's somewhere you haven't had, for example, maybe you haven't had a primary care placement or community placement. See if you can request that for your third year management, let's see. Also think about the types of conditions that you've liked. So if there's anything out there that you've been taught at university, anything you've been taught out on placement, anything you've seen on placement, you think, oh, I really like that. I was really interested in that. Have a look at the types of areas with those sorts of patients. For example, if you were out on a placement and you had a patient who was newly diagnosed with cancer and you were really interested in the treatment and the ongoing care of cancer patients, you might wanna think about a management placement as a way of like oncology, a hospice, for example. Them types of placements can be really, really good for learning. So yeah, just think about what you've seen already and what you're most interested in and that'll really help structure your management placement. However, not everyone gets the choice and you kind of just get given your management placement. So really sorry about that. Next question, when is your book coming out? I'm so, I'm starting, I'm starting nursing and you inspire me so much. Oh, thank you. That was so cute. So if you don't know already, I've got a book coming out, guys. Come on, where have you been all my life? So yes, I started my book in 2018 as a student nurse. I started what should be like a student nurse as a Bible guard, the bits that nobody tells you basically. So this isn't about anatomy and physiology. This isn't the practical stuff that people tell you. This is the stuff that you're gonna wanna know to get through nursing school and hopefully bag you your new qualified jobs at the end. It's a whole story from start to finish basically to help you guide you through university life and your nursing journey. And I'm just, I've incorporated like my own stuff in there, what I've experienced to help you out, some tips, advice, some help, some information, some guidelines as well to help you through. There's so much in there, like from applying to university all the way through. So it's gonna be really good. In my head, it's gonna be really good and I hope it helps people out there. I'm gonna be giving a couple of copies as well so I can do a giveaway and that'll be in the future hopefully. But when it is coming out, I'm not 100% certain. So basically I have now about 48,000 words left to right. So once those words are down, which to be fair, I'm doing like a thousand words a day at the minute. So fingers crossed, it's gonna be out before Christmas or maybe ready for Christmas. It could be a Christmas gift. Come on guys, need to think about this strategically now. Come on. But yeah, hopefully it should be out before Christmas, fingers crossed. That is where I'd like it to be. The publishers have given me until June 2022 to write it, but it's gonna be done way before then and out way before then hopefully. Keep an eye out, watch the space. Did you find it difficult balancing your social life with placements? This is a really good question because I think a lot of people struggle with this. I feel very, very fortunate because actually I didn't have a life clearly. No, but I didn't have, like I haven't got a family to think about. I don't have children. I don't have anything going on really exciting in my life. So I found it really easy to balance everything. I don't know how I did it because I did so much throughout university. Like I had my placements, I had assignments, I had exams. I worked part time as well to get money, but not only that, I was part of social groups and social clubs. I was going to events. I was doing so much. I was raising money for the Caval trust charity as well. Trying to raise money for nurses, doing bake sales and climbing Snowden. I done so much. I was exhausted at the end of it guys. But do you know what? I personally didn't find it difficult. I managed to fit everything in and do everything on time. But I think it's just about staying organised and prioritised. So as soon as you get assignments launched at you, do it, get it written, get it out the way because the sooner you can do it, the sooner you can put your first draft aside that the more time you've got for other things. And that's what I found with placements. Again, placements were easy. I found placements just so easy. I don't know how because when I had my wards, you're only in three shifts a week. You've got four days off guys. Like you've got all those days off. But again, it depends on you and your life. Like if you've got children to help, if you've got family members that you're caring for, if you've got all these things going on, it is going to be really difficult for you. But for me, I didn't have all of that. So I had four days off. I could work around it. I could do my assignments. I could do my revision. And I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry for anyone that's going through a really difficult time right now and struggling with it. I really hope that you can sort of manage it. Something that I did do actually when I was on my GP placement because it was five days a week. So I only had the weekends to do things. I had less time I found to do things. So what I did is I used to get to work an hour earlier. I used to sit and I'd do an hour of revision or an hour on my assignment. Also, you can ask for study days as well. They can allocate you so many study days on placements as well to do these things and help you out. So just find ways that are going to fit around you in your life to be able to balance it and prioritise and organise things. But I hope you find what works for you. Can you go into a GP nursing as a child nurse who is newly qualified? Absolutely. So in GP, oh my gosh, general practice is amazing. Like I said, we've got so much variety. We've got so many different fields of nursing. We see so many fields of nursing, sorry. So I see children, I see babies, I see mental health patients, I see learning disabilities. I see the whole field of nursing where I am. So being that field of nursing is going to massively benefit because I think a lot of general practice nurses are tend to be more adult trained I think or general trained. It depends on where you are. But just from the gist that I can get and the feelers out there on social media, this is the area that people have come from and worked in. Oh gosh, I'm sorry, I hope that makes sense. But yes, is the answer. If you're child trained, you're going to be a massive benefit because we see so many children. We do the baby immunisation. So you're going to have all of that knowledge to help us out. You're going to be amazing. Same with mental health nurses. Mental health teams are going to be amazing in general practice. We see so many patients, especially with COVID and long COVID and the pandemic has been a massive strain I think on mental health of people. So please apply for general practice because you're going to be fantastic. Again, same with learning disabilities. We see so many learning disabilities patients as well. We have adult trained nurses again. So we're doing the learning disability reviews every year. So you would be a massive benefit in practice. So please apply. And also, even though I'm adult trained, I still need to do additional training to become a general practice nurse. So this is the sort of thing that you'll do. You'll still do the additional training to be able to do the baby immunisations, to be able to do the reviews, to be able to do cervical screening and things like that if they're the things that they're going to get you to do. So yeah, just go for it. Okay, there are hundreds and hundreds of questions. So I'm going to leave it at this very last question or this vlog is going to be too, too long. So I've just started a job as a practice nurse. Any tips there's so much to learn and know. Be kind to yourself. That is my biggest tip. Like coming in as a newly qualified nurse into general practice, it is tough. I can't say it's easy because it's not easy. There is so much to learn. There's so much to know. Like I said, GP is general. So you need to know a little bits of everything. So it can be really, really tough and you can be starting to, that self-doubt and that imposter syndrome can really kick in. So please sit back, drop your shoulders, deep breath, breathe, relax, okay? It's not physically possible to know it all, especially not straight away. Even, I keep saying this, even our top consultants, even general practitioners themselves, they don't know it all. They have to ask each other for things. You will find the area that you love the most. And so for me, it was the asthma and COPD. So now I'm the respiratory nurse for our clinic. So I'm more focused on that area and trying to learn more about that. However, I'm still doing my cervical screening. I'm still doing baby immunizations. I'm still doing wounds, ECGs, injections, everything in between. So I have to know a bit of everything. And 18 months in, I still haven't got a clue about things. I'm still learning. I'm still training. I've only just finished my asthma and COPD training. 18 months in as a GP nurse. So don't stress about it. Don't worry about it. Just be the best that you can be. Be safe. If you don't know something, be open and honest to your patients because they love that. They would rather you were safe and said, you know what? I don't know this, but I'm gonna find out. Then just assuming or just guessing and then making a mistake. So absolutely safety first, look after yourself, be kind. But where to get started is look at what training you need. Okay, so look at the skills that you're gonna need to do. Look at the training you need to be able to do those skills and ask to be put on courses. Ask for more training because if they're a good, good practice, they should be enhancing your skills. They should be enhancing your knowledge and they should be putting you on that training to make sure that you're a safe practitioner at the end, a safe nurse at the end of the day. E-learning for healthcare is a great place to start as well. They've got so much on there. So I did the baby immunizations program on there. Have a look at doing that. So vital screening is on there as well. All of the vaccinations, immunizations is on there. Great, great, great, great start. If you're gonna be doing that sort of thing in practice to have a look at. Next thing you wanna do is go on the Q and I, the Queen's Nursing Institute website because they have a general practice nursing induction template. Have a look for it. Literally just Google Q and I, induction, GPN and it'll come up. This is a really good template to start on and to work through because it's gonna give you everything you need to get started. They've also got a really good website that they've just started and it's called gpnen.com or .co.uk. But if you just Google GPNEN, it comes up, it's one of the first ones there. It's by the Q and I and it's everything you need to know about becoming a general practice nurse. It's absolutely amazing. So have a look at that. But they are the top three things to do when you get started. So I'm gonna end the Q and A there. I hope that was really helpful for some of you. Actually a lot of the questions were repeated as well. So a lot of people want to know a few things. So I've done the most sort of common ones that people have asked and I hope I've covered enough for you. But if there's anything else you would like to know, just go drop a Q and A on my TikTok if you're on TikTok. If not, put a comment below and I can try and cover something for you. If there's anything I've missed, if there's anything you wanna know more about, university life, general practice nursing, anything like that, please ask me. I'm always about to help. Feel free to inbox me as well, anything if you're struggling, anything like that. Feel free to inbox me and I'll get back to you. But for now, this is it from me. I hope it's been helpful and have a great week.