Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 June 2005 15:38:26
Yes, I'm still in lectures. We have so many placements to fit into the nursing course, that our lectures run on past everyone else's. Grrr, its not fair - most first years have finished now till September.
I've just had a lecture about counselling skills and how to break bad news to people. It is a very serious reality, but in the lecture it was just funny. That sounds really bad. What was funny was the example we had to practice with. We had to break the bad news to our partner, that they smelt. I mean, how are you supposed to keep a straight face and do it seriously, with that example?
Its the kind of thing i'm not looking forward to doing in practice. Its all very well, telling us what position to sit in and to reflect everything back, but when you're actually doing it, does it really help? The lecturer told us not to pass the client tissues until they've been crying for a while - becasue otherwise people hide behind the tissue and don't let everything out, it helps to have a good cry - let it all out. But its natural instinct to pass someone a tissue when they start crying. and to give them a hug. Knowing the world today, someone would probably try to sue me for assult if i gave a supporting hug to a patient or relative. We were talking about this in the chaplaincy today. In a law lecture we had last week about consent, there was an example given about a woman who was having surgery in her breasts, can't remember exactly why, but whiles she was 'under' the surgeons discovered a lump that could have been cancerous, and they took the liberty of removing it. The patient hadn't signed a consent form to allow them to remove this lump, and so when she recovered from the operation she sued them! But they had just saved her life! Can't she just be grateful? She probably got a good sum of money out of it.
I nearly fell asleep yesterday in a lecture. On a bed, as well! It was about how to assess patient's levels of consciousness and in the practical part of the lecture we had to role play different situations. When I was the patient, i had to be completely unconscious and my friends had to work out what was wrong. I just lay there and had a little nap, whiles they shouted commands and pinched my neck/shoulder (one of the only places where you are allowed to test for pain reactions). The pinching wasn't particularily comfortable, but how many people actually have a bed to fall asleep on in lectures!