Student Nurses: Bedpans and Bandages

Episode 2 (1x2)

Air date: Feb 21, 2014

Episode two follows second-year student TK, who spent six years selling beds before changing career to train as a children’s nurse. Second-year Aimee reveals how treating stroke patients is especially poignant for her, and squeamish Kelly has to overcome her fears on her first shift as she witnesses an injection. With young children of his own, TK finds the long hours on the ward particularly challenging. TK is on an eight-week clinical placement in Birmingham hospital’s specialist liver ward. As his 13-hour shift begins, TK has a new patient to settle in - five year old Caleb. TK says: “If you take an interest and open up to people, they do the same back to you.” Checking vital signs of such young patients requires a light touch. When TK’s patient comes round from anaesthetic, TK struggles to comfort him. TK quickly learns that sometimes, only mum will do, he says: “It’s just a lesson that sometimes there’ll be things that I can’t do. It’s actually quite difficult. I near enough cried.” In Birmingham’s Good Hope hospital, second-year Aimee starts work on the stroke unit. For the next two months, Aimee will work 12-hour shifts under the watchful eye of her mentor. Aimee says: “It can be quite difficult, you can find it quite hard. Because sometimes they (the patients) do pull on your heart strings and it is quite uncomfortable.” For Aimee, treating stroke patients is especially poignant as her grandfather suffered a stroke before he passed away. She says: “Instinctively, I did all that I could. I called the paramedics, but before they got there, he passed away. CPR didn’t work and by the time they got there, he was gone. But I thought, ‘If I can do it for him (perform CPR), there’s a good chance I can do it for somebody else’. I know that by doing that, I’ll make him proud. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to save his life.” At the University of Salford, after eight weeks of theory the nurses