General Nursing / Midwifery / Children's Nursing

CatEyed92

Hey.
Can anyone tell me about these courses/careers?
I've done a good bit of research on the course but just looking for an inside POV of a student nurse/nurse?

The workload and tasks/What a typical day is?
How do you get into the areas you want e.g A&E etc?
Salary? Hours?
The roles of nurses e.g what position you start of at and work your way to? Opportunities?

Thank you

crazygirl101

hi cateyed92, Im currently in my final year of nursing in dcu and love it! so basically you start in first year and have 6 weeks placement in the hospital, this increases to 8 weeks in second year and about 24 weeks in third year. All these placements are unpaid and you'd generally speaking be doing 3 long days a week depending on where your placed. During fourth year you complete 11 months placement and 9 of these are paid and you are considered a member of staff and have to take responsibility for about 6 patients.

In terms of deciding what ward you will be on thats up to the hospital and isn't very flexible. Obviously you get a good taster throughout the four years of the exciting wards like A & E, theatre and psychiatry as you have to do a certain time in each setting.

T o answer your other questions the salaries are not good especially starting out but when you gain more experience they are grand. the standard working day is 7.30-8.30 three/four days per week. you'll start as a student, then an intern, then become a staff nurse and perhaps CNM1,2 or 3 if u wanted to put yourself through the hassle!!! hope this begins to explain it... anything else let me know!

laurakilleen

I'm actually really interested in midwifery myself so I hope one of those students post a response!

CatEyed92

crazygirl101 wrote: »

hi cateyed92, Im currently in my final year of nursing in dcu and love it! so basically you start in first year and have 6 weeks placement in the hospital, this increases to 8 weeks in second year and about 24 weeks in third year. All these placements are unpaid and you'd generally speaking be doing 3 long days a week depending on where your placed. During fourth year you complete 11 months placement and 9 of these are paid and you are considered a member of staff and have to take responsibility for about 6 patients.

In terms of deciding what ward you will be on thats up to the hospital and isn't very flexible. Obviously you get a good taster throughout the four years of the exciting wards like A & E, theatre and psychiatry as you have to do a certain time in each setting.

T o answer your other questions the salaries are not good especially starting out but when you gain more experience they are grand. the standard working day is 7.30-8.30 three/four days per week. you'll start as a student, then an intern, then become a staff nurse and perhaps CNM1,2 or 3 if u wanted to put yourself through the hassle!!! hope this begins to explain it... anything else let me know!

Hey! Wow thanks for taking the time to write back!

That's really cool! Can you tell me what assignments are like? Are they tough or reasonable enough? And lectures, exams?

Thanks

crazygirl101

CatEyed92 wrote: »

Hey! Wow thanks for taking the time to write back!

That's really cool! Can you tell me what assignments are like? Are they tough or reasonable enough? And lectures, exams?

Thanks

No bother at all! From first to third year you'll have a mixture of exams and assignments. Personally I am studying in DCU so I only have assignments to complete in 4th year this differs slightly in UCD because I know they have exams. Speaking from experience in DCU all the material is well covered and the lecturers are extremely fair and very approachable if you feel that your struggling with something . Obviously it is a bit daunting in fourth year when your faced with 5 big assignments to complete in 8 weeks we all got through it together! All other assignments and exams through the years have been grand, university is much fairer then school in that if you fail something theres always repeat exams and support from lecturers, the college wants you to succeed!

Is there any particular college your interested in? or any specific branch of nursing? let me know if you've any other questions!

CatEyed92

crazygirl101 wrote: »

No bother at all! From first to third year you'll have a mixture of exams and assignments. Personally I am studying in DCU so I only have assignments to complete in 4th year this differs slightly in UCD because I know they have exams. Speaking from experience in DCU all the material is well covered and the lecturers are extremely fair and very approachable if you feel that your struggling with something . Obviously it is a bit daunting in fourth year when your faced with 5 big assignments to complete in 8 weeks we all got through it together! All other assignments and exams through the years have been grand, university is much fairer then school in that if you fail something theres always repeat exams and support from lecturers, the college wants you to succeed!

Is there any particular college your interested in? or any specific branch of nursing? let me know if you've any other questions!

That's cool!
I did Arts last year but wasn't my first choice, Nursing was. There was no support at all in Arts and it wasn't what I thought it would be!
I'll be glad of that in Nursing!
I want to go back to UCC. What are the topics in assignments and exams?
I would like to experience a bit of everything I guess. I'd be interested in A&E, maternity, children's, surgery.

crazygirl101

CatEyed92 wrote: »

That's cool!
I did Arts last year but wasn't my first choice, Nursing was. There was no support at all in Arts and it wasn't what I thought it would be!
I'll be glad of that in Nursing!
I want to go back to UCC. What are the topics in assignments and exams?
I would like to experience a bit of everything I guess. I'd be interested in A&E, maternity, children's, surgery.

Yes, the support in nursing is great because when on placement as well as having the support from the staff theres support from the clinical placement coordinators too who you see once a week or thereabouts when out on placement. Ah you'll experience all of these in general nursing at some point. Im doing psych, but I've still gotten to do placements in children's and surgery and that which is nice!

The topics for exams and assignments all differ from college to college, I know DCU offer a service from the library that you can view past papers so I'm sure UCC offer the same, there websites should also go through each individual subject etc on their websites. From what I can remember first year was a lot of continuous assessments so small pieces on communication, the history of nursing and starting practical work was all covered. Second year you complete anatomy, pharmacology, pain management things like that. Third year is a branch specific year so I was focused on psychiatry so I can't be of much help with that! In fourth year you cover things like ethics/philosophy, accountability, teaching and assessing and research! all in all though you'll be very well prepared for each assignment/exam!