Yes this is the part that a lot of my
nursing colleagues are waiting for. My friends that I miss so much, kept asking
me how is your placement? did you start yet? When are you going to start? How
is it? Many questions I have been asked. Well! up till last week I was answering
“NO I’m sorry I haven’t started yet”. Yes now, it is the time to say that today
it is my third day in my placement in accident and emergency department in Pori main
hospital and I LOVE IT!
Yes I do! The reason why I love, because of
a combination of many aspects, firstly I like the hospital structure, it was
confusing to start with as it is massive and all the signs only in Finnish but
after a while I really got to like it, well! as you can see, it took me only two days to like
it! I get to have my own locker (first time in nursing that never happened in
any other placement) Not only that, I have another locker on the actual department
too! Yes now I do have two lockers one for my clothes which is the main locker
room with facilities like showers, toilets, and uniforms plus another locker on
the department that I use it to keep my mobile phone, my wallet and some documents
for my placement. I did mention that my lockers have uniforms there. Oh Yes! I
do have new uniform every morning, fresh clean and I don’t have to take it home
wash it and iron it. In fact, I do remember how much effort it took me to
collect my uniform the first year in my nursing degree! it was not easy. This
time it was effortless, I just go to my locker room where I take a shower to defrost
my body after cycling in the snow, then I change my clothes and pick a new uniform and put it on and the end of day
I put it in special bin for washing.
Talking about uniforms. My uniform, which
is for accident and emergency department, is comfortable it has many pockets;
my name badge is designed to fit perfectly in one of the pockets without pins
that scratch my skin every time I put it on, like my old name badge. On my first
day, I get to have a notebook that again designed to fit perfectly in one of
the other pockets along with pens to use.
It seems that I’m excited about these
little things but trust me these little things make my job and learning a lot
easier. Another thing I like to see, that the staff can use scooters within the
hospital as quicker mean of transport between departments.
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| Pori in the snow! |
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| Perfect pockets to fit everything I need |
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| Other Pockets I can use |
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| More pockets ! |
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| Scooter to be used within the hospital department! I have asked if I can take this picture and I got approval . |
As you can see for my previous posts that I
love food and I wrote a whole post on food. Luckily, in the hospital there is a
restaurant only for staff that is amazing! Again only €2.60 for everything, and
it’s open buffet so you can take as much as you want on your plate, this
including coffee, drink, various types of milk, biscuits, dessert. There are
generally three buffets. One of them is gluten free and lactose free.
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| Preview of the food before you pay and choose which buffet you going to take |
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| Lactose Free and Gluten free meal |
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| My lovely warm lunch today, i feel great after eating it and ready to work hard :) |
The other thing that I like about my
placement that everyone get to wear a uniform that usually very similar to each
other and yes including the doctors they wear uniform too and their name is
clearly displayed! The doctors here they wear same uniform and a white coat above it. I
do remember it used to annoy me to see some of the doctors, dietitians and
other professionals, back home, wear their normal clothes and generally they have
their name on a card that is sometime in their pocket or turned inside out! So sometimes you don’t know who you are talking with!
My first day was very interesting, I cycled
to work while the outside temperature was -19 degrees, and Of course I was
wrapped up in many sorts of things! My hands are cover, my head is covered my
face is covered apart from my eyes! My feet have snow boots on and I had
two layers plus my snow down jacket that I’m glade that I bought the last
minute before I come to Finland from Christmas break.
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| In the morning |
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| The whole city is frozen |
My lovely tutor a week before introduced me
to the hospital for the second time. She took my colleagues and me to the
hospital, showed me where everything is, got me my keys for my locker and
showed me where I get my uniform. As a result, I found my locker room ok on my
first day, I got a bit lost but I asked and then I got there. I changed to my
uniform and I turned up on time at the accident and emergency department I have
been received with a lovely member of staff who showed around showed me where
everything is etc. I actually thought this is only done for me as I am exchange
student but no this is done to my Finnish colleagues too who study at my university in Pori. I have two lovely Finnish students working with me in accident and
emergency! They are truly wonderful, they guided me, translated things to me,
helped me to learn new Finnish phrases on how to interact with patients; they were
always there when I need someone to translate! For these three days they waited
for me to take me with them for lunch! They are truly great.
At the beginning I was overwhelmed that
everybody speaks Finnish and everything in Finnish, signs, documentations, the
computer systems, equipment, everything! And Finnish language is not related to
anything! For example, telephone is almost a similar word in many languages even
in Arabic! However, in Finnish it is PUHELIN. So you can imagine. This is where
my intensive language course came in handy! I started to dig inside my brain
and take out everything I learned in the classroom and I have to say my mentors
didn’t expect me to speak Finnish and they are very happy to see me trying hard
to learn the language and interact with my colleagues and the patients, one of
them said to me that now I speak Finglish.
It has only been three days and I have to
say I feel great! I have been trained to do procedures I cannot do in London
and I have learned procedures similar to ECG in Finnish language, I have
learned how to great patients, asking them how they are and asking them if I
can take their blood pressure and observation. Patients here are delighted to
see that someone is learning their language. Mentors here seem to have complete
faith in their Finnish students; students here are allowed to draw up control
drugs and give them to patients, students are allowed to cannulat patients and
give them intravenous fluids. Everyone in the department is super helpful and
already few doctors taught me a lot of things about patients conditions,
certain drugs in just three days. The nurses are actually calling me to see
procedures and learn news things; this is not because I’m on exchange, this is
the case also for my Finnish colleagues who are on placement. It has been only
three days and already my tutor came to see how I’m doing and asked one of my
mentors about my progress. And by the way, just to mention, nurses are not allowed to work long
shifts, as far as my mentor told me, they are only allowed three long days in
three weeks. So I’m currently enjoying my working hours. Other thing, cleaners
have to go to a special school for 2 years to learn how to work in the hospital
as a cleaner.
The structure of accident and emergency
department works slightly different from in the UK. Patients’ first contact is their own
healthcare centre, if it is serious then the healthcare centre doctor refers
them to accident and emergency department then a triage nurse will assess them
and decide where they should go. Patients then can be directed to either parts
of accident and emergency department, medical division or surgical division; there is also
an acute division where generally patients with serious condition go there,
most of patients of this division come through the ambulance. If patients’
healthcare centre is closed then patient can go directly to accident and emergency
department where there is a division within accident and emergency department that
is called healthcare center. This division will only be receiving patients out
of hours. This healthcare centre has few beds that patients can stay for a
while to be monitored after that either can be discharged or can be referred to
medical or surgical division. This is plus another division where there are few
beds just for alcoholics to be detoxed. They can stay there till they are well
again and go home. Last thing to mention there is a ward attached to the
department to keep patients over night to keep patient under close monitoring
for while before they go home.
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