 Hi everyone and thank you so much for tuning into my channel. If you're new then a massive welcome to you. My name is Claire Carmichael. I am finally a newly qualified nurse. I am awaiting my NMC pin registration as we speak. Hopefully it won't be too long and I'll get it before January. And this is my third year overall blog so I just want to give you an overview of third year, what's maybe expected of you and hopefully get rid of those doubts and get rid of those panics and fears that you might have about third year. And another disclaimer as always, I can only speak about my own experiences. This is just personally what I've been through and this is everything that goes on at Birmingham City University and your university may differ from this. So just have a look at your Facebook groups and your own university guidelines modules to get more of an insight from your own university lecturers and students and all of that jazz so that you can be a bit more prepared maybe for what your university actually does compared to Birmingham City University but hopefully I'm going to give you some little tips and advice maybe to help you cope anyway. So at our university we have four modules. So our four modules are at the first half of the year we have nursing practice four which is our big anatomy and physiology final exam and in that exam we had a choice of four case studies but they narrow it down to two at the end and you pick between the two that they give you for the final exam. So ours were liver cirrhosis, myocardial infarction with a mixture of pulmonary edema and we had COPD mixed in with sepsis which is a really good one and we also had like a subdural hematoma which is a big bleed on the brain which was really exciting but I didn't understand any of it as you might have seen from my previous videos at the start of the year. So two that we got to choose from was the myocardial infarction and the neuro one and I just couldn't do the neuro one. So myocardial infarction and pulmonary edema was the one that I chose. We had to learn the conditions, we had to learn how to treat it, how to manage it as a nurse, interventions, we had to know the pharmacology so the ins and outs of what medication that we were going to give this patient, side effects, doses, contraindications, all of that. We also had to know a load of blood gases, what they did, what they were testing for, what it means if they're out of range. We had to know all of the observations why they would be out of range, what's going on in the body, why she got a high heart rate, why she got a high blood pressure, why has she got no urine output. All of these different things we had to explain in massive detail for the exam. Luckily I passed it thank god but that was our first module and then our second module was policy and politics which I kind of was dreading when I heard the title I was like I don't want to get into policies procedures and politics even though we need it as nurses just to sit and listen to someone talking about that I imagined it to be really dull but actually it was quite an interesting module. I really enjoyed writing the assignment as well. I was a little bit gutted with my grade because I honestly thought that was my best piece of writing and it was one of my lowest grades so I wasn't happy with that but the module itself was great, the assignment itself was really well structured, it was really laid out and then for the second half of the year we had our acpe dissertation slash not dissertation that I've banged on about in previous vlogs, I'm not going to go into too much detail but that was a four thousand word assignment which wasn't enough words for me, I would love an extra thousand for the results section just to get those critical points in there a little bit more and go in a bit more depth with it so I didn't feel like there was enough word count but I managed it, I smashed it thankfully. I actually got a first in that one, I got 75% from a dissertation which some of you know because you've watched my previous vlogs but I was chuffed considering I didn't get any GCSEs or anything at school and yeah I had to work really really hard to get that 75% guys but all in all the dissertation was actually not that bad even though it stressed me out a lot and it drained my soul a little bit actually all in all it wasn't that bad looking back at it and I thought actually it was all right, I followed the guide, I followed the workbooks, I followed all of the examples that they put online for us to do, if you do all that you can't go wrong guys just make sure you follow all of your assignments, the guides the information that's online for you follow it all and you'll be just fine and then our final final module of all was our transitioning to qualified practitioner the one that we were all excited for because this is our final bit so for this we had a PowerPoint presentation so this was alone in front of a small group there was only I think about 15 of us in our group there wasn't that many at all and you get a chance to practice in this module so we practice in small groups every single week to get us used to speaking in public and everything and to try and get rid of those fears I'm not going to lie on the day I feel like I melted I felt like I said um um a lot I feel like I stuttered a little bit but I did say everything I needed to say and I said it with a little bit more um a little bit more um what am I trying to say without reading off my cards do you know what I mean a little bit more autonomous I don't know what am I trying to say guys I didn't have to read off my cards that much because I'd practiced it quite a bit so I just had the little bullet points just to just to remind me where I was at the time which was probably have for this video because I haven't prepared anything and now I have no idea what I'm talking about so yes along with that we had our numeracy as well so we had our final drugs calculation exam where we had to get nine out of ten for this or you failed basically I'm very very fortunate I got a hundred percent in that so yes I didn't have to do that again I found actually drug calculations really really easy I found it much easier than doing the first year maps which was all fractions and decimals all of these weird and wonderful things that I hate but I found just putting it into a sentence like the doctor gives you this but you need this and you've got this I found that's so much more easier to understand because I've been on placement and I've been doing medications and stuff so I could work it out really really simply in my head fortunately for us we did get a calculator as well which helped massively so all in all third year for us the modules were they seemed um oh I don't want to say this but I'm gonna say it anyway they seemed a little bit easier than second year and I don't mean to put anyone down or anything like that I loved second year second year was my by far my best favorite year because I did so much I did so much extracurricular activities so I had a way over time second year I was living my best life second year and third year I just feel like the modules I've just got on with and I've done and I've found it actually a lot easier I don't know why I've really enjoyed the modules I've really enjoyed the workload has been really nice for third year the workload has been a lot easier than second year for me I just my own opinion some other people might think differently but the workload was split up really nicely it we had a lot of time to do everything we had enough time to do everything whereas second year it was all boom boom boom boom this felt like a lot smoother laid out well and we had just far more time to do everything so overall for third year for me has been amazing and it's been really good for the workload side of things and then of course we have placements which is what you really want to know what is expected of you on placements in third year OMG it's not that bad guys stop panicking honestly sit down give yourself a pep talk it's not that bad so basically through the years first year you're a little bit more supervised by your mentor you sort of stick to the side because you haven't got a clue what day it is you haven't got a clue what terminology is and you're just like what pretty much sums up first year placement first year first placement and then as you go on you learn a bit more you feel a bit more confident and then as you go into second year you sort of start to do things on your own she's like I know this I've done this first year and you start to pick up things physiology starts to really click in in second year and you think oh my god I understand and then you will be working alongside your mentor but it'll be a little bit more of a distance so they'll sort of supervise you from afar and then in third year you have to show your autonomy so you have to make sure that you're rationalizing things that you're doing so your mentor might ask you questions like okay so what would you do in this situation what type of dressing would you use for this and why and if you don't know the answer that's perfectly okay as long because you can show where you would get that information from so if my mentor says to me Claire what would you put on this leg also I'd be like I don't know this leg also is a mess it's everywhere there's blood there's exudate there's a load of slough but actually this bit's really dry I've got no idea what I would use however I'm going to look at what we've got for a start what have we got and then I'm going to look at the guidelines for management of leg ulcers nice guidelines and then I'm also going to look at the wound management plan in the bnf which is really really good I advise anyone to look at the bnf wound management plans because there's tables of what sort of dressing do you use for different types of wounds whether they're sluffy necrotic and all of that is amazing look it up so that's what I would do I would go and I would find the evidence what works best for this type of wound and then I would do that and I would apply that and hopefully it will make the leg better in the long run so then you're assessing it the week after so that's basically it you have to show that you can rationalise your decisions that you can find evidence based practice and put it into practice as a nurse and that's all they want you to do they want you to be safe they want you to practice safely and protect your patients and do the best for your patients so that they get better that's all that they want to see I haven't found that I'm doing anything seriously more than I was second year I'm just showing that I know things and that I can safely redress a leg without someone having to do it for me you're sort of going into patients and you're thinking oh they don't look right instead of going to your mentor and saying my patient doesn't look right what shall I do you're saying okay let's get the ops machine let's do some ops you do your ops write them all down you're going back to your mentor and saying listen this patient wasn't very well they they looked like they were about to pop it or something I don't know they're looking jaundice who knows whatever your reason so I've done this I've done the ops this is what I've found I'm really worried because their blood pressure is really really low and then you can even go to a doctor yourself if you wanted to if you felt that comfortable you could go to the doctor and say listen this patient is blah blah blah here I remember findings what do you think what do you recommend what can I do can you come review them all of that jazz that was like a hundred miles an hour I'm really sorry but you get what I'm saying so your placement you are just showing that you're safe you're safe to practice you can make decisions that's it you're going to smash it you've been doing it first year and second year you're going to smash it keep being you and they will love you and along with this you will have your placement documents so whatever you need signing off in there whatever it says you need to do to meet those competencies and skills do that always follow your university and trust guidelines policies procedures and that document make sure you get it signed off make sure you're doing everything you should be and you'll be amazing and for my management placement it was all of the same things but my mentor wanted me to show more management because it's management placement they wanted to see those management sort of skills so things like delegating sort of prioritizing your workload organizing the day so I had to think a little bit more differently because I'm not a delegator and I know we have to and I will do it but I hate it I feel really uncomfortable doing it and but I am better at it now I'm not as bad and I will do it because it it's the NHS we are short staffed we need to delegate and we can't take so much on or we're going to burn out so those delegation skills have to be put in place so I did do it a few times where I delegated to the team or a team member I sort of I got my list for the day of our patients and I organized our patients and what was the most prioritized one to the least and things like that so I did do a little bit of that as well and that's it really um there was no really like extremely high expectations because we are still students we are still newly qualified nurses and again if you don't know something say or just say I really don't know this but I'm going to find out and come back to you I've done this a few times where my mentor and another nurse actually said oh do you know what this is and I was like never even heard of this medication ever in my life I didn't even know it was such a medication and they were like oh should we look it up because actually that person didn't know either it was the first time they had seen it so and they'd been experienced for years so I said well let me look it up and I'll come back to you so I went back and I looked up all the stuff and then I went back to them and said this is what I found and yeah so it's just little things like that and you just have to remind yourselves that you are still learning even when you're newly qualified you're still going to be learning and nobody knows it all top consultants I've seen this happen myself so I know it happens top consultants top NHS chief executives they don't know it all and I've seen people I've seen top consultants ask other people for help I've seen them come to nurses I've seen them go to healthcare assistants to say oh really don't know about something this isn't what I'm usually doing do you know anything about this and it happens we can't physically know it all our brain isn't programmed to know everything about everything we can only store so much information through routine and practice and what we're doing every day day in and day out so please be kind to yourselves if you don't know it all if you don't know something say it don't practice unsafely say yeah I know this and do it and then put a patient at risk now patient safety always admit when you don't know something ask for training ask for more experience in something go away research something if you don't know it just keep yourself and keep your patience safe and that is the best thing I think any of you can do students I see you out there on social media really panicking when you don't know something and you're like I'm not cut out for this I don't want to I can't be a nurse because I don't know this or I've had a bad day forget it do you know what if you don't know something it's fine if something went wrong it's fine mistakes happen and as long as you learn from those mistakes as long as you reflect from those mistakes as long as you're open and honest and do something about it you're going to be fine you're going to be great everybody has mistakes so please don't beat yourself up about it and I hope to God you take this little piece of information that I'm giving you now and you take it on board and you listen to me if you don't listen to anything else of this video don't beat yourself up take it in your stride reflect move on don't be don't dwell on the things that have gone wrong think about the things that are going well have gone well and how you can improve next time so just to summarize my final pieces of tips and advice for third year firstly when you get your assignments through look at your assignment brief follow that assignment brief to the last t if you do that they can't fail you because you've followed the assignment brief you've added everything you should do it'll just be your grade that you get and obviously that'll come with your writing and your critical analysis and all of that so please just follow the assignment briefs follow any guides or workbooks or anything like that that they give you follow it literally to the last p go to your library go to your personal development department if you're really struggling get some more help don't suffer in silence with it also if you're feeling really stressed if you're feeling burnt out take some time out and i know you might feel like there's not enough hours in the day but literally 10 minutes of meditation or just 10 minutes shutting everything off and just sit for a minute gather your thoughts and just get back on track because you are the most important thing out there you should be number one priority because if you can't look after yourself then how are you going to look after your patience you have to be on your best form you have to be your best self so you can make them their best selves so please take some time out relax and just you'll be okay don't forget to break everything down as well so when you've got assignments coming in dissertation break it all down write yourself a timeline when you're going to do things how you're going to do it stay organized this is a really good tip that i've been saying from first year you need to stay organized and prioritize your workload don't leave it to last minute because if you leave it to last minute it's gonna be a mad rush you're gonna get stressed and oh it's not worth thinking about guys just get your things organize it plan it and do it and make sure you make the most of every opportunity this is your final year to do this when you're a newly qualified nurse you're probably not going to get these opportunities again so make the most of everything out there as a student just go with all different teams go on different pathways really get involved and just get in there get stuck in and just learn just learn as much as possible absorb it all and just on a very very final thing you are if you are if you're not yet but you will get here come back to this video but you are a third year student nurse now if you're watching this and you are third year and you are struggling and you think oh how am i going to do it i don't want to fail why why are you thinking like that you've got free first year smashed it you might have maybe not passed something first time but you've smashed it the second time or third time you've got through second year the second year workload was insane um you've got through all those exams all of those assignments so why should third year be any different you've come so far smashed two years guys you've come to third year you are here why would you start failing now just keep doing whatever it is you've been doing and smash it you're going to pass it you're going to you're going to be amazing nurses get rid of those doubts get rid of those fears and remind yourself how far you've come what you've done so far and look to the future wearing your blues getting your pain and just carry on