Not sure whether Nursing is for me?

I’m 22 and a student adult nurse, currently repeating my first year as my practice assessor failed me during my midpoint interview. My first placement was in community but this wasn’t district nursing. It was more of going to different care homes and checking on residents. This team I worked with worked multidisciplinary with the GP so they would send out referrals to the team to visit residents at care homes. I was told this shouldn’t be a placement for first years and it’s usually for 3rd year students. I did mention to them if they could speak to my academic assessor regarding this placement in the beginning to see if they could change my placement area which they didn’t bother. It came up to my midpoint interview where they were concerned i was taking far too many days off, reason being why is I found it boring. I didn’t get to do much, all i did was observations. I did lack confidence and during my time at placement, I had chronic laryngitis so my communication with patients wasn’t so great. I was told i don’t talk and i’m very quiet. The thing no one understood is that my voice was really bad at the time, trying to talk was difficult as it felt like i was whispering and no one could hear me. So in that first year I was supposed to have another placement, this time it was a ward. I attended one day only for a few hours and made an excuse to leave as I felt so overwhelmed. As I started, all i did was make teas for the patients. It was a CCU ward, one patient needed to go down for surgery and I was told by the nurse to find tape and i wasn’t sure as to what she meant by tape so i’ve gone to find it and i couldn’t. She looked at me and asked where’s the tape and i said i couldn’t find it she looked at me in disgust and ran to get it herself. I generally feel so put off over one little situation but i don’t know how to overcome this.

My retrieval placement has began and it’s supposed to be my second week in but I haven’t attended one shift; i’m supposed to be 5 shifts in. I keep making excuses as to why I can’t attend and I’m seriously in a situation where I feel like nursing isn’t just for me. However, I have enjoyed the academic side of nursing. The nurse assigned to me seems really lovely she has reached out to me asking whether if i’m going to attend and that she will support me all the way. I keep saying to myself every night before I am going to go, the morning comes and I just back out.

As i’ve not been attending placement, i’ve let my family down especially my mum cos she really was over the moon when i first got into my course. I feel like a huge disappointment and failure. If i was to drop out of the course, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself as I have never worked elsewhere. I wouldn’t be able to change courses as back in 2021 I was doing a teaching course at University which i dropped out of as i felt like it wasn’t for me. I managed to get into Adult Nursing but i’m currently repeating so I definitely wouldn’t be eligible for student finance again. Hope anyone could give me some guidance on what I should do as I seriously need to fix up.

Reply 1

Tonilou04

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I think it’s hard once you get yourself into a mindset about something, to get yourself out of it. Your new mentor sounds lovely, why don’t you explain how much you’re struggling and equally reach out to uni. They maybe able to support you better. I’m sure you’re not the only person to feel this way doing a nursing course x

Reply 2

LJMUStudentReps

Official Rep

Hey there,

I strongly recommend that you get in touch with your practice mentor, as well your cohort leader and the mental health and wellbeing team at your university. As the previous person said, it can be difficult to get out of that mindset once you’re in it, and it sounds like you need some support to help you.

Nursing isn’t for everyone, but it sounds like you’ve got that spark there for the academic side, it sounds like you’ve had bad experiences with placement, which can make it incredibly daunting. If your current practice assessor is being supportive, maybe take a chance on them, because they could help change your mindset.

In terms of rude staff, they need to remember that you’re in your first year, and you’re not going to know where all the equipment is kept. I’m in my third-year and still struggle with that!

Please don’t suffer alone, please reach out to your university

Nat
Third-year student nurse and ambassador