My time is now up in A&E. I feel I have learnt so much during this placement, the learning experiences, the staff, the patients were all great.

I did have some issues though. I am at the start of my 2nd year but some staff appeared to think that I was a 3rd year student and therefore expected more from me. This became apparent the week my mentor was off. They were asking me thinks that we hadn’t covered in uni yet, things that they expect all nurses to know in A&E. Well I’m not going to work there once qualified that’s for sure.

There was only 2 nurses like this thankfully. They would stand right behind me when I was doing assessments, this would put me right off and I started to feel like I actually knew nothing about anything. Because of this my shifts were changed the week my mentor returned. Those that I worked with had no issue with me, I was given my own patients and would only go to them if I needed something. Even the practice development nurse I worked with once thought I was doing a great job for a 2nd year.
Thankfully after that week I went back to working with my mentor and I felt much more comfortable.

I am exceptionally happy for my time in A&E. I do feel that every student nurse should have a placement, even a short one, in A&E. Now I just need to get an ITU placement