New Job. New Experience.

I've finally started my first ever full time job after my Psychology degree in the Chase Farm Hospital! What would I describe my job after working for more than 35 hours this week? I told my ward manager that I'm enjoying it, and in fact, I am! This morning had a quick chat with bpeng, I described it as rewarding and interesting yet tiring.

It's basically a forensic mental health trust, a rehabilitation ward. I guess I shouldnt go into any details about any particular patient due to confidentiality issues, but from the words "forensic" and "mental health", guess you can grasp a rough idea of how the patients are like. and YET! it's a rehab ward, so those patients actually progressed from acute wards, and then being transferred to this ward, i.e. they're KIND OF stable. I know all of them by approaching them and talking to them first, all their first impressions in my head are good, nice and stable. But I get some time to look through their files of what they have been through, what kind of crimes they committed, what kind of behaviours they taken in the past, I was really O_O shocked, some of them had been in the system for about 20 years, and are still here.

Having said it's a forensic ward, the security level is actually very high. We're carrying the keys, identity scan and an alarm with us all the time. I felt fun in the beginning, and now I'm getting used to it. But right, the place itself feels like a community rather than a hospital, with most of the living basics. I worked a late shift yesterday, and I could sense a home feeling when I was sitting in the lobby watching tv with the patients xD, and then one of them taught me playing pools.

I've got really really nice ward manager (it's like a quality guarantee as sooo many people said to me that he's really good), and because I'm the only new (and young xD) nurse in the ward, I'm happy that most of the seniors are taking good care of me, sharing their experience and telling me what dos and donts.

And so, what do I do? basically it's surrounding what the patients do, and the only part I'm not involved is giving medicine, in which we would have qualified nurses doing it. Like what the ward manager says, basically, what I do is building rapport with them, ensure they've got someone to talk to when they want to, theirs needs are fulfilled, and when they get unstable or a bit aggressive, I'd be able to calm them down. Other than that, we're doing smoking sessions, activity & meal preparations, planning meetings, care plans, risk assessments, ground leaves, tea bar (there are more, but because it's still a new ward, after a month or so, when things are all settled down, i'd get the chance to learn and see more of it). And there are quite much of paperworks as well, doing notes on each shift of how each of them is getting on, and if you're assigned to be a security nurse on your shift, there are even more stuff, like checking where each patient is hourly, make sure the environment is not hazardous etc etc.

A lot to learn, a very very very fresh and interesting new environment to me. Hope I could make the most out of it.

( to be continue.. I guess )