Placement - Accident & Emergency

Hii, my placement in January is in Yorkhill hospital, a & e. Was wondering if anyone who has had an a & e placement in 1st year could tell me what its like..? :smile:

ty xo

Reply 1

dani_88

Original post by amzz29

Hii, my placement in January is in Yorkhill hospital, a & e. Was wondering if anyone who has had an a & e placement in 1st year could tell me what its like..? :smile:

ty xo

My last placement was A&E and it's a bit of a marmite placement to be honest. You'll either love it or hate it. I hated my first couple of days but only because I was so overwhelmed by everything I saw and felt like a lost sheep following people around and being TERRIFIED to be left alone with really poorly patients (even for a second!)

By the end, I loved it.. and really considering a career in emergency nursing / critical care.

You will see so many conditions - lots of epileptics, falls, chest pain and abdo pain - you'll be sick of ?appen by the end of your placement :p:

You'll see a whole spectrum of patients - young, old, dying, disabled, pregnant.. you name it. The placement really taught me to get to grips with my communications skills - and I would say that's a key learning opportunity really. The best way to ask triage questions, the best way to build a rapport with a patient in a matter of minutes, how to decide what information is relavent to right now and what can be dealt with on the wards etc.. Another biggie is moving and handling - loadsss of pat sliding and log rolls if you get rtas etc..

Skills wise - you'll probably cover everything. Plenty of catheters, plenty of aseptic, plenty of injections , as well as more obs and ecgs than you can throw your pants at. You'll almost definitely be involved in a life support attempt at some point and probably last offices.

I would say - try and spend as much time as possible in resus because that's where the most critical care is. I devoted most of my time to majors and resus and only spent a couple of shifts in minors just to get practice at strips and dressings and things like IM injections (tetanus) etc...

You will probably feel overwhelmed, but take in as much as you can, throw yourself into it and just ask loads of questions etc.. Any specific questions i'm happy to have a go at answering :smile:

Reply 2

InArduisFouette

A+E for a first year placement is interesting situation ... as you won't necessarily have the skills , knowledge and experience of more senior students.

a lot depends on your placement outcomes and sometimes it can require a little creativity to map placement outcomes to the things A+E staff do , especially in the world of the 4 hour target ( because even if it;s been abolished by the centre it's still there in a lot of Service Level Agreements with the commissioners )

to be honest i'd say split your time between all areas of the department , while resus may be exciting for a full standby for a cardiac arrest or trauma , some resus patients won't offer you a lot to do in terms of learning , where spending time in triage / assessment or on minors will allow you to be become more and more familiar with history taking, physical examination skills and practical procedures such as Obs, ECGs, dressings as well as chance to observe or assist with plastering and suturing, majors in the post 4 hour era is a lot less interesting than it was in t'old days where much of the initial specialist management that would have been done in A+E is now done on AAU or base wards ...

Reply 3

amzz29

Original post by dani_88

Hey, wow thank you, that was alot of help reading that :smile:

Are you a first year student aswell? Im just relatively quite scared as my first ever placement was in a Nursery and now I am being placed in a & e - aaaah! Really looking forward to it though, think its gonna be an eye opener :smile:

Reply 4

dani_88

Original post by amzz29

Hey, wow thank you, that was alot of help reading that :smile:

Are you a first year student aswell? Im just relatively quite scared as my first ever placement was in a Nursery and now I am being placed in a &e - aaaah! Really looking forward to it though, think its gonna be an eye opener :smile:

No, I'm a second year. A&E was my first placement of second year. I was terrified to hell when I started there... But thankfully, the department were really good and my learning outcomes were adapted a little bit for my stage of training.

Are you doing adult nursing or paeds? One of my course mates went to childrens A&E as her first ever placement in paeds. She coped quite well - but lots of observation as opposed to actually getting involved.

I only didn't suggest triage as a place to spend time because on my placement I wasn't allowed to do much in triage. I could watch...but because nurses have to do an extra course in order to triage at my trust and that combined with the waiting times and what not, I wasn't allowed to do it. So watching a couple would have been fair enough, but spending a full day there would have been futile. But if you are allowed to triage under supervision then go for it, it will build your assessment skills as zippy says.

And yes, it probably will be an eye opener. I kept a placement diary and it was a really good thing to do if you get chance :smile:

Reply 5

cragdale

I got placed in A&E in my first year for a few weeks and it was a great learning experiance. The staff were very good taking into account I was a first year. It really did my communication skills a lot of good just talking to patients in triage and gave me a lot more confidence when going back to the wards.

It is one of those placement areas people seem to love or hate. I for one loved it and would seriously consider a career in A&E or critical care after being there. I do have friends who hated the place and would never want to go back again.

Reply 6

amzz29

Well thats my first week over in a & e. Its really really interesting but cause im a first year it is a lot of observing. Lots to learn though and can be verrry intense! 3 weeks to go!! :smile:

Reply 7

murphy84

Just been given A & E for my last placement before qualifying :smile:

. Really looking forward to it and trying to get some insight into what it'll be like.

Reply 8

amzz29

oh cool, are you doing child nursing or adult?! x

Reply 9

rhihelen95

Anyone know of hospitals that allow a student for A&E placement as have to organise a 4 week placement for October as part of our course and would love to experience this as part of my learning. Any comments are much appreciated :smile:

Reply 10

moonkatt

Original post by rhihelen95

You'd have been better off making a new thread rather than bumping a three year old thread, most people in this thread haven't been on the site in years. :wink:

As for which A&E departments allow student nurses, most of them do. In fact, I've not heard of an A&E department that doesn't have students in. Have you thought about contacting your local hospitals or do you want to try an out of area placement?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 11

rhihelen95

Original post by moonkatt

You'd have been better off making a new thread rather than bumping a three year old thread, most people in this thread haven't been on the site in years. :wink: