My Journey So Far & What I've Learnt

Hi! My name is Emily, I'm a first-year student nurse studying Adult Nursing BSc (Hons) at Manchester Metropolitan University.

My Journey So Far:

Nursing is something that I never would have thought I'd be doing now. Even this time last year I hadn’t considered nursing! I moved up to Manchester in 2019 and started pursuing a Sociology degree for a year. It was during the first lockdown that I realized I wanted to go into nursing, I think it seemed quite out of the blue when I spoke to my family and friends about it as I was happy studying Sociology and I loved the course, but I was inspired by the nurses (and all healthcare workers) on the frontline. I realized I wanted to be a part of the NHS and wanted to make a difference through my career. I got in touch with the nursing department at my university and filled out an internal application for the Adult Nursing course. I had an interview in May and got a place in the September 2020 cohort. 

Nobody could have predicted what this past year has been like and the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our lives. To say the least, 2020 was an incredibly challenging year! I’m the kind of person who likes to be busy all the time, so naturally, the lockdown has been difficult for me. After having such a long period of time with no structure, I was so excited to start my nursing degree in September, however, due to the pandemic we’ve not really had any face-to-face classes on campus. Because of this, I haven’t actually met many other student nurses from my cohort, which is a shame as it’s always good to have friends who are in the same boat as you and who know what you’re going through. Luckily, there are two student nurses in my cohort that are on placement in the same department as me and I’ve become good friends with them, and my housemate is also in my cohort! The structure of our course so far has consisted of two months of theory from September to November (all online), and then in November, we started our first placements.

I don’t want to start on a negative note, but I found my first week of placement really difficult and I questioned why on earth I’d chosen the nursing pathway! I was placed on a busy ward, along with a few other new students, that was understaffed and there were actually more student nurses than staff nurses, and the ward had also changed due to COVID-19. As the ward was so busy, we had no induction: we weren’t introduced to anyone, and we were just left not knowing what to do. We asked what we could do to help and asked to shadow some of the nurses, but we were either ignored or told there was nothing we could do. This was a really stressful experience; however, I spoke to the Practice Education Facilitators (they support the students at the hospital trust), who were absolutely brilliant and managed to move my placement to the Renal Transplant Clinic (Outpatient Department). 

From the moment I started my placement at the Transplant Clinic, I felt welcomed, supported, and valued by the team, and I have honestly loved every minute of being there. My mentor is fantastic, she is so supportive and encouraging – she and the rest of the nursing team I work with have taught me so much, and their encouragement has boosted my confidence and has made me realize that I can do this. Comparing this placement to my experience on the ward I was previously placed on, I have realized that this is how it should be. We should be valued as student nurses, we should be encouraged to learn, and we should have proper support in place as we are there to learn. 

What I’ve Learnt:

The main lesson I’ve learned so far is that you learn from everyone you work with. I have so much respect for the nurses I currently work with on placement, and they are the kinds of nurses that I aspire to be when I’m an RN. And whilst there may be some people you come across during your training who aren’t very welcoming, who aren’t supportive or treat you differently because you’re ‘just a student’, it is SO essential to rise above this and take a positive outlook from it, and this will shape your values: knowing exactly what you want to be like and don’t want to be like, as a nurse.