My favourite things about nursing

Claire has just finished her second year as a student nurse. In this video, she shares her favourite things about nursing that makes the hard work worthwhile!

Topics covered in this video

0.00 Introduction - favourite things about nursing

1.06 Helping people

2.16 Seeing people get better

3.05 Seeing the relationships patients have with family/friends

4.30 Reading up on nursing

7.15 Job security

Watch more videos by Claire

0.00 Introduction - favourite things about nursing

Hello, my name is Claire, I have just finished second year at the University of Southampton and I'm about to go into third year.

Today's video is sponsored by Nurses.co.uk, and Nurses.co.uk is an incredible website where you can sign up and you can search loads of jobs in nursing and midwifery, and you can keep up to date with what jobs are available and is also is a platform where there is a blog so you can learn more by people's experiences and just learn more about Nursing and Midwifery in general.

So, I’d definitely subscribe to the Nurses.co.uk channel if you want to see more.

So, today's video is about my favourite parts of being a student nurse and I think there's definitely so many parts that I like, when I think about being a student nurse and what I really like and but I think there's a few parts that are definitely my favourite.

1.06 Helping people

As cliche as that sounds, the first one has to be the feeling of helping people and actually making a difference to somebody's day.

Whether it be really small thing or a really big thing, whether you're saving their life or just helping their life in some way.

It could be as simple as fixing somebody’s pillows and making them more comfortable in bed or it could be doing life-saving treatment with a doctor or whatever that does actually save their life.

It doesn't always have to be about saving people's lives but actually making people's lives better.

I think I used to think that we had to do really big things to make somebody's experience in hospital better and make them remember hospital in a positive way or wherever when you’re nursing somebody, but I think that it actually comes down to the very small things like I said, you know fixing somebody's pillow or getting them a glass of water when they're really thirsty.

Doing things like that make a really big difference. Also, just coming in with a smile - people remember that I used to not think that was true but it definitely is.

2.16 Seeing people get better

Obviously, a big part of being a nurse is getting to see people getting better and there's also the other end where people, unfortunately, don't get better and we do see people dying.

But on the other hand, which I think is one of my favourite parts of being a student nurse, is seeing somebody come in really really ill and we with the doctors and every other healthcare professionals do lots of things to make them better.

I think knowing that they were in such a bad place and then seeing them, let's say, on discharge day when they're going home, knowing that you've been involved in their care and that you've actually made a difference to them, whether it be as I said saving his life or just doing something small.

It’s crazy to be able to see someone so sick and then on discharge day going home.

So that's definitely one of my favourite things I think.

3.05 Seeing the relationships patients have with family/friends

So, not only seeing patients by themselves in hospital, but I think one of the main things I really look out for and I really like to see is when patients are with their family.

I know not everyone is lucky enough to have family come and visit them in hospital, but when patients do have family and you can just see that love between the patient and the family, whether that be a partner or a mother and a child or a dad and a child, or just the different relationships.

It sounds like a weird one but I think it just really makes it feel like that patient has a completely separate life outside of this hospital or wherever you're caring for somebody and that they actually are a mum or a dad or a sister or brother, like they have a completely separate life.

So I think seeing them interact with their partner or children or granny or grandpa really makes them feel real, that they are a complete real human outside of the hospital.

So I think it's a strange one but I just love seeing patients interact with their relatives, to see that really caring and thoughtful deep love for their relatives.

4.30 Reading up on nursing

I think one of my favourite things about being a student nurse is that it's not just being a student nurse.

There are so many other aspects to it, and the fact we can read up on things and explore nursing further as a student I think is incredible.

There's so much we can do at this age and I know we're not registered, or you might be registered but I'm not yet, I’m going into third year, means that you're often limited to what you can do on placement because obviously we can't administer IV drugs and things like that but there is still so much we can do.

And one of the things I really like to do outside of placement and outside uni is to read up on nursing books and things like that.

I just want to mention this book quickly here because it has honestly changed my perspective on nursing and how I see experienced nurses - so this is a book called The Language of Kindness by Christie Watson, and she was a nurse in the UK for I think over 20 years, and the book is basically her experience, being such an experienced nurse but it's not all just about her being really experienced, it's stories from her very first day as a student nurse up until the day she retired.

So I think it's incredible and it's obviously a true story, so it's so real and it made me cry, it made me laugh, it literally brought me through every emotion.

So if you would like to get this book you can get it for free if you’re using Audible, and if you go to the link NursingSecrets.co.uk/Kindness, you can get the link there for free.

I would highly recommend it, and that's the Audible version so you can listen to it whether you’re in the car, going for a walk, in your kitchen; you can listen to it anywhere.

I just need to put this in there because it's honestly an incredible book, and I'm not a reader generally but I honestly couldn't put down, like I just wanted to read more and more and more!

I actually think I'm gonna use the exact same link I gave you to listen to it myself.

Sorry about the tangent (!) but I think that is definitely something that we can almost take for granted, that there's so much we can do as a student nurse to get involved with the actual nursing career without being qualified yet.

We can research things, we can read books such as the Language of Kindness, we can do so much that you don't necessarily need to be qualified for and it means if we do this now, when we are qualified we'll be so much more experienced and knowledgeable when we are just newly qualified, which is crazy!

7.15 Job security

I think one of my favourite things as well as a student nurse it's knowing that we don't have necessarily have a fear of getting a job, because I know so many university graduates these days finish the degree and they may get a first but they don't have a job to walk into after.

I think because the nursing applications are down a crazy percentage this year, and especially because now in the UK, you have to pay 9 grand a year to be a student nurse, so I think that's definitely turned people off the fact it used to be free and now it's 9 grand a year.

Anyway, this is good news for us who are in nursing at the moment or planning on going into it because it means that there will be plenty of jobs.

For instance, on the Nurses.co.uk website, currently there are 7420 jobs that you can search and apply for which is absolutely crazy, and that goes from staff nurse positions to nurse practitioners, also midwifery jobs if that's what the field you're into.

You can sign up and you get notifications when jobs are available in your area.

Or you can just search ‘I want to be a nurse in London’ and loads will come up in different hospitals and have the pay and what you need to apply and everything like that.

So it really is incredible, and you can also upload your CV onto Nurses.co.uk which is obviously incredible.

So I think one of the main benefits of Nurses.co.uk is that you can search and apply for jobs super easy and you can also, as I said, upload your CV, and there's also a tab where you can save jobs, so you might see a job that you're really interested in and you will save it onto the save jobs tab - I think that's so good because you're never gonna lose the job that you might have really wanted.

I also think that somebody like me who's going into third year, it's just a really good website to be able to look at the different jobs there is, and I'm not applying for a job currently, I will be in a few months, but before I'm even at that level we can just go on to the website and check out the jobs - it's interesting to see what jobs are available, even to look if there’s a certain job that you would pick right now if you could!

I think it's just really cool to be able to see what jobs are currently available in the UK.

So these are my favourite things about being a student nurse! If you want to leave what your favorite thing is about being a student nurse in the comments below I would love to hear from all of you, and please don't forget to subscribe to Nurses.co.uk’s channel as well as mine, which is Claire Quinn Nursing Secrets.

Thank you so much for watching and see you soon. Bye!

Watch more videos by Claire

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What do I need for nursing school?

My 5 best experiences as a student nurse

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